


Long Distance Gaming AU

by curedreamless



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrinette, Alternate Universe, Cute, F/M, Fluff, Games, Long Distance Relationship, Skype, online
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-18 06:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5902666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curedreamless/pseuds/curedreamless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marinette wasn't sure how it happened so quickly, but it did. At first it was little things, a few text messages and innocent banter. Then came the Skype calls, that started out short until they became hours on end. She could listen to his voice all night, and still wish for more. More time to spend with him, more time to hear his voice calling to her, telling her the sweet stories that she soon wished were reality. It was like a disease had taken over her, and there was nothing else she could do but think about him, to dream about him. And even though they were thousands of miles apart, separated by a glass wall inches from one another, somehow, just for a moment, she felt like he was there with her, and everything was perfect.</p><p>Also on FFN :) Inspired by one of my best friends' real life story. Happy reading :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginnings

Marinette wasn't sure how it started. A "few" messages, random confusion, multiple clicks and many aggres(te)sive Internet searches later, she was (most definitely) in love.

* * *

_Winner!_

"Yesssssssssss!" Marinette cheered, a wide grin on her face, throwing her arms up into the air. She had won another round of _Ultimate Mecha Strike III_ (again) and this time, it had only taken her slightly under 30 seconds.

"Jeez Mari, it's no fun playing against you. You always end up handing my ass to me." Alya complained grumpily. "Hell, you could probably even beat me without even _looking_ at the screen."

"Oh cheer up, Alya," Marinette replied teasingly. "It's not like you're going to lose sleep over it. Besides, I've got no one else to play with right now. My dad's been busy with a big order lately, and I've got nothing to else to do. Neither do you."

"Homework?" Alya asked pointedly, with a smirk on her face.

"That doesn't count!" Marinette protested in response.

"So you didn't do it."

"Well…I did some of it? I'm terrible at physics!" Marinette wailed. "Everything just turns into a jumble of letters and numbers and formulas and argggghhhhhh!" She flopped down onto the couch face first and started to moan, depressed. "I'm hopeless."

"Oh come on, girl. You can do it. I can try to help if you want!" Alya offered encouragingly.

"Nah, It's okay." Marinette sighed, taking a breath in. "I'll just ask the teacher or something. Maybe Google it. I'll get it eventually."

"You sure?" Alya said, frowning. "I got nothing to do tomorrow night, maybe I could drop by and help with the homework a bit. We could struggle together!"

"Really?" Marinette asked, lifting her head up hopefully.

"Yeah!" Alya grinned. "Tomorrow at 7?"

"It's a date!" They both burst out laughing; knowing fully well that neither of them had ever (and probably never will have) gone on a date. Alya's phone suddenly beeped, signaling that she had received a text message. Alya pulled the phone from her pocket and scanned the text message briefly before frowning.

"I gotta run. My mom wanted me to help out with set up at the restaurant before the big event this evening. Guess she wants me to come early. You going to be okay?" Alya asked.

Marinette sighed, yet again. "Yeah. I will." She smiled halfheartedly and walked Alya to the door.

"Laters, Mari!" Alya called, speed walking around the corner. Marinette waved to her friend and then proceeded to slam the door shut as soon as Alya was out of sight. Marinette then walked to her room and turned her computer on. She immediately began to browse the Tumblr search page for _Ultimate Mecha Strike III_ and began to unconsciously smile, reading all the latest news and admiring the gorgeous fan art. Then, one headline caught her eye.

**Ultimate Mecha Strike III Online Tournament!**

**Sign up now for free! Many prizes and rewards available!**

It was an online tournament sign up post, hosted by a quite well known member of the UMS III community, "The Gamer", AKA the nerdiest kid Marinette ever had the pleasure of knowing, Max. Below the headline there was a link to a page that Max had posted a few hours ago. Clicking on the link, Marinette began to read the details and the more she read, the more her interested in the tournament she was getting and, _holy_ , those prizes! First place would win the title of Best UMS III player as well as a bunch of other goodies that were _very rare_ and _very expensive._ Marinette was pretty sure she was gaping and if she didn't close her mouth, she'd probably start drooling. She logged onto her Skype account as fast as she could and saw that she had hundreds of messages from her online UMS III friends. As if on cue, Max requested to video call her.

"Hey Marinette! Did you hear about the tournament I'm hosting?"

"Of course I did! Who do you think I am?" The two friends shared a grin. "But wait a sec," Marinette asked, slightly confused. "How is this going to work? I mean, how are we going to get all the people together and…"

"No worries Marinette! We're going to play on the new connect mode that's coming out with the latest update. It lets you party with people from all across the world! Plus we'll make a Skype group that'll let us keep of the participants and be able to inform everyone of dates and times."

"Max…That sounds…AWESOME!"

"I know right! We can play with everyone and…ahhhhhhh!" The two shared a combined fangirl/fanboy moment before they ended the call and Marinette was left to grin crazily alone. She would _finally_ have the chance to play the people she'd chatted with over the months. Marinette was very famous in the UMS III community. Any hardcore fan of UMS III knew Marinette. Well, knew her by her screen name, Ladybug. She was well known for being a "grandmaster" at her bot of choice, the LB-03. She had won many junior tournaments in France as well as a junior grand championship. She knew most of the best players and were pretty good friends with all of them. Well, most of them. Occasionally she would also post videos of her fights onto her Tumblr page and they always got thousands of notes. Marinette was a hardcore gamer who like baking and fashion designing. She was also a pro-feminist. Not all girl gamers were tomboys or strippers and Marinette loved to prove people who stereotyped her. Just because she was a "girly-girl" did not mean that she wasn't able to leave her opponents in the dust. Marinette to the controllers, it's off the hooks! Bam-Pow! :D Marinette grinned as she replied to all the messages that her friends sent to her before she noticed the time and as quickly as it had got there, her grin fell. _Her math homework._ Crap. Ohhhh crap. She'd gotten so carried away with replying messages that she had forgot to start on the math homework that was due tomorrow. She scrambled to grab her bag and proceeded to trip on the power cord and fell face first onto the floor. Great.

* * *

The preliminary matches were a breeze. They were so easy that Marinette, well, Ladybug, didn't even need to try and she still got through fairly easily. Now the bracket was down to eight players, down from the couple thousand that had signed up. Players were drafted into brackets of around thirty and then winners of the brackets were sorted into brackets of ten-twenty and so on. The final eight players were put in the grand finale bracket, where they would brawl it out and a winner would be declared. After weeks of fighting, here they were. A ding! Signaled a notification from Max. Marinette checked it and pleasantly surprised. He had created a group chat for the top eight and unsurprisingly, Marinette knew most of them. The usual were here, Max (The Gamer), Nino (Bubbler, which was a nickname from "a friend"), Kim (It'sJustKim), Alix (Timebreaker), and Plagg (Plaggue). There were also two people that Marinette didn't recognize. A girl named Volpina and a guy named Chat Noir. Hmm. They had cool profile pics, she noted. A cat and a fox. Interesting. Marinette immediately requested to add them as contacts and quickly typed a hello into the chat.

Ladybug: Hey guys! What's up? ^_^

The Gamer: Hey Mari! Just thought I'd make a group chat for all us winners ;)

Timebreaker: Great idea, Max! BTW, who are the new fries?

Plaggue: Some friends of Nino and I.

Volpina: Who are infinitely better at UMS III than you'll ever be ;)

Chat Noir: Its sad but _paw-_ sitively true ;DDD

Ladybug: …

Ladybug: Sry bro, but I dnt hv a hard time believing tht.

Plaggue: U guys r just jealous I don't love you as much as cheese.

Plaggue: Someday, I will marry my beloved Camembert.

Plaggue: And we will fly off into the sunset and live happily ever after

Bubbler: …and that is why you dnt have a gf

Plaggue: pshh who needs a gf when you can have cheese!?

Chat Noir: Why are we still friends? You're a _paw-_ ful. I ain't _kitten_ here.

Ladybug: Are you going to keep doing that forever? :l

Marinette typed while rolling her eyes. The response came almost instantaneously.

Chat Noir: y? is it _buggggging uuuuu? :oooooo_

Volpina: should I smack u? I would love to smack you rn

Marinette almost face-palmed. Gosh, the 5 of them were already a handful, but with the addition of the two new members of their little circle, this was going to be total _chaos._ Not that she minded it. It was wonderful to have a group of friends with the same interest as you. She quickly typed up a response.

Ladybug: seriously? xD

Chat Noir: Embrace the catness or you might find yourself in a

Chat Noir: Wait for it

Chat Noir: _Cat-_ astrophe

Ladybug: y

Ladybug: I can't believe I wanted to be friends with you! ;_;

Ladybug: you...pun-making...

Ladybug: ...dork

Chat Noir: I didn't mean to, princess T_T

Chat Noir: I was just kidding, plz don't hate me M'Lady! qq

Chat Noir: M'Ladybug*

Chat Noir :DDDDDDDDDD

Ladybug: -_-

Chat Noir: :ccccc

Ladybug: '-'

Chat Noir: *-*

Ladybug: 0,0

Chat Noir: ~(-_-)~

Chat Noir: ಠ_ಠ

Ladybug: ('-')

Chat Noir: (⌐■_■)

Ladybug: =_=

Chat Noir: ❀❀❀

Ladybug: ._.

Chat Noir: :3

Ladybug: ._.'

Chat Noir: ('_')

Ladybug: ('_')

Chat Noir: 8)

Ladybug: (- -;

Chat Noir: (^w^)

Chat Noir: (^^^^^^^^^w^^^^^^^^^^)

Ladybug: ...what?

Chat Noir: HA I WIN

Ladybug: …

Chat Noir: play again? :D

Ladybug: no

Chat Noir: b-but…

Ladybug: guuud byeeeeeee

Chat Noir: But Buggy-boo

Ladybug: Oh hell no

Ladybug: I ain't your Buggy-boo

Marinette looked at the screen in exasperation. Puns were bad enough but nicknames…god what kind of a nickname was "buggy-boo"? Then suddenly she remembered there were other people in the chat room as well.

Volpina: Ew. Get a room.

Bubbler: I ship it! I SHIP IT

Plaggue: I ship myself and Camembert ;)

Timebreaker: YES

Timebreaker: Not you plagg the emoticonic friend texting lovebugs

Timebreaker: you see what I did there

Volpina: Should I start planning the wedding?

The Gamer: Already on it.

Wait. What?! Why are...? They just...Apparently Chat Noir was thinking the same thing, because a second later, a "HOLD ON FOR A SEC" showed up on her screen. Marinette typed furiously into the chat, (chat…heh…oh my god he was already rubbing off on her), fingers flying.

Ladybug: omg guys wtf

Bubbler: whats their ship name guys we need a ship name

Volpina: Lady Chat?

Bubbler: Ladyien?

Volpina: Chatbug

Volpina: WAIT NOOOOOOO

Volpina: LADY NOIR

Volpina: I LIKE LADY NOIR

Bubbler: I GOT ONE LISTEN TO THIS

Bubbler: LADRIEN

Volpina: YASSSSSSSS

Bubbler: NO NONO WAIT MARICHAT I LIKE MARICHAT

Volpina: wait wahts Ladybug's name again

It'sJustKim: Ladybug. Duh.

It'sJustKim: jkjkjk

Bubbler: MARINETTE

Bubbler: sorry caps

Ladybug: …I'm still here guys

The Gamer: do you prefer lilies or orchids? 2 tier or 3 tier cake?

Ladybug: WE ARE NOT GETTING MARRIED

Chat Noir: well…

Ladybug: what is wrong with you guys

Volpina: I GOT IT I GOT IT

Volpina: ADRINETTE

Volpina: I LIKE ADRINETTE

Bubbler: MARICHAT IS BETTER

Volpina: FINE

Volpina: LADY NOIR IT IS

Bubbler: LADRIEN. LADRIEN RULES OVER YOUR DUMB SHIP NAMES

Marinette could only blankly stare at the computer screen as the mayhem unfolded in front of her. Alix and Max were arguing over where the venue should be, and Kim was already buying wedding presents for them. A new notification popped up. It was a private message. From Chat Noir.

Chat Noir: Uh…why are they randomly shipping us? We literally just met ._.

Ladybug: IKR! They can be so weird sometimes

Ladybug: Like this one time, they argued over what kind of bread was better

Chat Noir: lol, did Nino start that argument?

Ladybug: yup.

Chat Noir: I'm not surprised. Nino can be passionate about many different…weird things.

Ladybug: You betcha.

Chat Noir: So…um…

Chat Noir: So how do you know Nino and Plagg?

Chat Noir: They're both my IRL friends and got me into UMS III. Though I'm definitely better than them both. xD

Ladybug: Tumblr.

Chat Noir: oh

Chat Noir: haha

Chat Noir: Not surprised.

Chat Noir: I'm Adrien, by the way. Adrien Agreste :)

Ladybug: Marinette.

Ladybug: Marinette Dupain-Cheng ^_^

Chat Noir: Um…this might sound stalkerish but where do you live?

Chat Noir: I know Max lives somewhere in France and Kim is from Thailand…

Chat Noir: I'm from New York, and so are Volpina/Nino/Plagg

Ladybug: Oh, I live in Paris :D

Chat Noir: Really? That's so cool. Your English is really good too :)

Ladybug: Haha, thanks.

Ladybug: Nino does tell me I speak with a weird French accent sometimes though XD

Chat Noir: haha

Marinette smiled at the screen. Maybe Chat, well Adrien, wasn't actually that bad of a person. They chatted for another half an hour about how weird their friends were and Marinette couldn't stop laughing when Adrien brought up the time Plagg got lost in L.A because he was trying to visit a cheese factory but ended up realizing that he was holding the map wrong and ended up on the other side of the city. Turns out, they had a lot in common. They both liked to play video games, liked the number seven, were better gamers than Nino and Plagg, were the same age, loved croissants...Then a question suddenly popped into Marinette's head and so she typed it into the chat.

Ladybug: One question, why Chat Noir?

Chat Noir: Why Ladybug?

Ladybug: Touché

Ladybug: Ladybugs are a sign of luck here in France :) I always was a fan of the comic _Lady Luck_ so when I chose a screen name, I decided to choose Ladybug :)

Chat Noir: That's really cool!

Chat Noir: Cooler than my story, that is

Ladybug: oh really? ;)

Ladybug: Try me.

Chat Noir: I just like making cat puns.

Ladybug: oh.

Ladybug: ok then

Ladybug: well…what do you like to do in your free time?

Ladybug: Any hobbies?

Chat Noir: I don't have a lot of free time. My dad's a fashion designer and I model a lot cause he wants me to.

Chat Noir: He's rarely at home and usually the one watching me is my dad's assistant, Natalie.

Chat Noir: Whenever he is home though, we don't really talk.

Chat Noir: I don't think he knows how to talk to me...

Chat Noir: I also have fencing lessons, piano lessons, Chinese lessons, basketball…

Chat Noir: You get the idea.

Chat Noir: But I do like to watch anime in the time I am free…

Marinette nearly burst into laughter. Anime. Well then again, she liked to stalk her favourite celebrities so in comparison, anime wasn't that weird. ish.

Ladybug: That's nice :)

Chat Noir: what bout you?

Ladybug: Err…I like to bake and make nice clothes?

And stalk my favourite celebs? That totally doesn't sound creepy at alll. Like if I knew you and you were a celebrity I'd totalllllllllly stalk you. Not that she'd actually say that. She hoped.

Chat Noir: Sounds about right :))))

Ladybug: excuse me?

Chat Noir: :PPPPP

Chat Noir: jkjk

There was an awkward silence in the chat.

Ladybug: Soooo….how's life?

Chat Noir: I don't know…

Chat Noir: stressed right now

Ladybug: why?

Chat Noir: got another shoot lined up. :(

Chat Noir: I don't really like modeling…

Chat Noir: but if it makes my dad happy, I'll do it I guess…

Chat Noir: Just wish he was there for me sometimes :(

Marinette frowned. That sounded a lot like a character from _Lady Luck_ she knew. Lady Luck's partner, Fèlix, was neglected by his parents growing up. They were hardcore businessmen and Fèlix often spent his weekends alone, even though his parents were home, they were always too busy working to care about him. Fèlix ended up taking business education courses even though he hated them because he knew it made his parents pleased. Eventually, Lady Luck, or her civilian identity, Bridgette, managed to convince Fèlix to follow his heart and do what was best for himself, though it did take a few years for her to finally convince him. Fèlix was such a cinnamon roll and Marinette despised the way he had been treated. At one point, Fèlix even fell into a deep depression and was akumatized! She wasn't going to let Chat Noir/Adrien be akumat- well, become depressed like Fèlix had been. She was going to make sure of that much.

Ladybug: Sometimes you gotta take care of yourself first though…

Ladybug: When you have some spare time, just take a moment and take care of yourself :) Do what YOU want to do and treat yourself to some Zen relaxation.

Ladybug: I know what it's like to be stressed and when it feels like all the cards are stuck against you, but you're going to be okay. I know you are. I believe in you :)

Ladybug: Do what makes you happy!

Ladybug: People might bring you down and set up all these expectations for you, but you don't have to listen to what they say, because the only one who truly knows you is yourself.

Ladybug: You have nothing to prove to them. You are amazing the way you are.

A moment passed and the chat was silent. Marinette tensed, waiting for his response.

Chat Noir: Thank you.

Chat Noir: I really mean it. :)

Ladybug: I know you do and if you're Nino's friend, then I know that you are an amazing person and you should just rock it!

Chat Noir: I will. :)

He signed off shortly after and Marinette hadn't even realized that she had been smiling the whole time. She noticed that the group chat had over 400 new messages. Rolling her eyes, she clicked on the tab.

Volpina: MARICHATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT MARICHATMARCHIMARINCINIA

Nino: LADRIENLADRIENLADRIENLADRIENLADRIENKADRIEEEENNNNNN

Plaggue: CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEESEEEEEEEEE

Well then...

Supressing a snort, Marinette's thoughts drifted back to Chat Noir/Adrien. Maybe she had gotten the wrong first impression of him. Adrien did seem like a really nice guy. And apparently he was a model as well…she's gotta check this out. Opening up the Google Search page, she typed in the name

"Adrien" then paused. What was his last name again? Agreste? She's heard of that name before…but Marinette couldn't remember where she heard it. She quickly typed in the rest of his name and what came up made her heart stop.

Oh. My. God.

OOOHH MYYYYYY GOOOOOOOOD

GOOOD LORDDDDDD

THIS ASJHDASODHA;ASHaklsdhl;akhd;laksdh'p

He was-

Ohmygodohmygodohmygodhessohothessohothessohotwhyhasgodbroughtmeabirthdaypresentomg

Marinette scrolled down and her mouth just dropped open as she stared. He was the hottest guy she had ever seen and oh my- LOOK AT THAT PRECIOUS FACE! LOOOOOOK AT ITT

She was vaguely aware that she was starting to drool and read every single article she could find about him. By the time she went to bed, she knew his birthday, his favourite color, his address, all the jobs he's done, his measurements, his favourite foods… Marinette knew she was being a creepy stalker but he was hot and nice and funny and cute and she could go on and on and on. It was certain. Even though she had only talked to him for forty minutes through text messages, just met him a few hours ago and only seen him though those precious Google Image searches, Marinette was most definitely in love.

* * *

 


	2. The Story of Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm going to tell you a story. The story of us."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was inspired by Glass Wall by Hatsune Miku and The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken. Have fun :D

Long Distance Gaming AU Part 2

* * *

_She could probably listen to him talk all night, and still wish for more. Marinette wasn't sure how it happened so quickly but it did. And somehow, just for a moment, even though they were thousands of miles apart, she felt like he was there for her, and everything was perfect._

* * *

School. There were few people who liked school, and Marinette was not one of those people. Her teachers just seemed to go on and on and on about some boring topic that Marinette had absolutely no interest in. Marinette sighed as she walked out up the stairs that lead up to her room and flopped down on her couch as soon as she could get even remotely near it. She was so hungry and tired and everything else in-between. But there was no time to waste. Marinette had work to do.

* * *

She had been playing so many scrims against her friends that her fingers started to hurt and her eyes started to droop. She'd won her fair share of games, but also lost many games against her friends, due to stupid mistakes and misplayed combos. There was only a week left till the semi-finals and finals of the tournament, and the past few weeks had been _crazy._ Everyone in the top 8 was damn good, and watching the best of fives was very entertaining. But now, it came down to only 4 competitors. The semi-finals were to be played on Saturday and the finals on the day follow that. The bracket was currently Adrien vs. Max and Marinette vs. Lila. Lila was Volpina's real name, according to Adrien. Marinette munched on a cookie as she watched Lila practice against Max. She was a good player, Marinette admitted. _But not as good as me._ It was going to be close. Marinette's breath caught in her throat and she watched, wide eyed as both of the players' health bar dropped lower and lower.

_Bam!_

"Yeah!" Marinette let out a cheer of victory as Max came out victorious.

Volpina: Nice one. Almost got you there.

The Gamer: You too! You're really good :)

Volpina: Of course I am. ;)

Marinette snorted. Classic Lila. Snarky and slightly arrogant. Not that she'd say that to her face.

_Ding!_

Hmm?

Chat Noir: Hey are you…

Adrien had sent her a message. Marinette grinned happily. They'd been texting each other ever since the first time a few weeks ago. They'd spent hours texting each other and were pretty good friends by now. She hadn't had the opportunity to call him yet though. A few days after the group chat was created, Marinette had accidentally broke her headset, being the clumsy bug she is.

Chat Noir: Hey are you there?

Marinette quickly typed up a response.

Ladybug: Yeah, just got on, had some homework to do.

Chat Noir: Oh, lol, I just woke up

Ladybug: O rlly? What time is it over there?

Chat Noir: It's 9:30 in the morning

Ladybug: Ah I c, its 3:30 here

Chat Noir: just got back from school I'm guessing?

Ladybug: yup

Ladybug: I hate school

Chat Noir: really? School seems like fun

Chat Noir: I'm homeschooled so…

Ladybug: oh youre so lucky

Ladybug: what's it like?

Chat Noir: boring

Chat Noir: got no one to talk to unless Nino or Plagg come over or something

Chat Noir: Usually they're too lazy to

Ladybug: ic

Ladybug: excited for the tournament?

Chat Noir: ofc

Chat Noir: aren't u?

Ladybug: Well, duh.

Ladybug: did you see the fight between Lila and Max?

Chat Noir: YAS

Chat Noir: It was epic

Ladybug: ikr

Chat Noir: on the topic of scrims

Chat Noir: wanna play?

Ladybug: um

Ladybug: sure :D

Chat Noir: :D

Chat Noir: I'll set up a party

Ladybug: ok

Chat Noir: is your headset still broken or did you get it fixed?

Ladybug: I got a new one yesterday

Chat Noir: yay

Chat Noir: wanna call?

Marinette squeaked a bit, knowing fully well that she'd probably blurt something stupid out and make a fool of herself. She just had to try not tell him about the 20 coloring printouts of his face she'd gotten, or the fact that she had a poster of him on her roof so he'd be last thing she'd see before she fell asleep. She'd have to try hard not to mention the fact that she'd been stalking his social media for the last few weeks. _Like that's not creepy at all!_

Chat Noir: um…hello?

Marinette jolted before quickly plugged in her new headset and responded to Adrien's question.

Send: YES

Send: Y

Send: of course!

Send: of

Send: yes plz

Send: ye

Send: yeah sure

Ladybug: yeah sure

_**Chat Noir is calling you** _

_**Accept** _ **l** _**Decline** _

Accept!

"Hey!" A cheerful voice that sounded like the heavens called out to her.

" _Hiiiiiiiiii…._ I mean..HI!" Marinette sputtered out. Laughter sounded out through her headphones and Marinette pouted, glaring at the screen. "What are you laughing at?"

"Nothing." Adrien teasingly responded. "Nino was right, your accent _is_ cute." Marinette was glad that they weren't video calling because if he saw her, it would make her already pink cheeks explode from embarrassment.

"What is that supposed to mean!?"

" _Noothinggg…."_

"Adrieeennn..." Marinette whined, mortified.

"Say that again." He said, all the teasing gone from his voice.

"What?" Marinette asked, confused.

"Say my name again."

"Adrien. Why am I doing this?"

"No reason. I just like hearing you say my name with that accent of yours. It's adorable." If Marinette weren't in a live call, she'd probably start screaming hysterically and have to call an ambulance. The hot American cinnamon roll of a model just called her cute and her accent adorable. I mean, he'd called her cute when they texted each other, but this was a whole different thing. Her life was complete.

"I invited you the party, do you see the invitation?" That snapped Marinette out of her trance almost immediately. She quickly reopened the client and accepted the invitation, not wanting to keep Adrien waiting.

"Ready to play?" Adrien asked her. God his voice was like caramel. She could listen to it all day.

"Yup!" Marinette responded, game mode on. Adrien started the bot selection and Marinette immediately hovered over to the LB-03 only to find Adrien had beaten her there. She snorted and Marinette swore she could hear Adrien smirking over the call.

"Just teasing ya there, My Lady."

"I sure hope you are, cause you are going DOWN!"

"Oh really? How are you so sure you're going to win, huh?" Marinette couldn't come up with an excuse so she just said what was off the top of her mind.

"Well…cause…I'm just going to win okay?" Adrien giggled in response. Like legitimately giggled. Marinette simply rolled her eyes and feeling a wave of daring coming over her, she smirked and locked in Adrien's favourite bot, the CN-13.

"HEY! Seriously!? Wooooooooooooooowwww." Adrien complained. "That's just plain playing dirty."

"No, silly kitty. I'm just teasing ya." Adrien scoffed and in return, locked the LB-03 in.

"Oh? So you're going to try to beat me with my best bot?" Marinette said.

"You brought this upon yourself, No-Longer-My-Lady." Was Adrien's response. Marinette grinned in challenge and she knew Adrien was grinning too. It wasn't that Marinette wasn't good at the CN-13; it was that Marinette was terrible at it. So she breathed in and prepared to give it her all.

_**READY** _

_**SET** _

_**START!** _

As soon as the _**START!**_ popped up onto Marinette's screen, she released her inner Goku and went Super Saiyan on Adrien/Chat Noir's LB-03. She held the joystick in one hand, and in the other hand, proceeded to go completely ballistic spamming buttons.

"What the-" Adrien was cut off by Marinette diving at him with her bot and the sound of Marinette's frantic button pushing. "Are you just spamming buttons!? That's not how you're supposed to play the CN-13! That's not how you're supposed to play any bot!"

"So!? I'm still winning!" Marinette shouted at him, excited. She vaguely heard Adrien choking in the background, but Marinette just laughed.

"Ok, have it your way then!" And with that, she heard a banging from across the line and suddenly Adrien's bot was doing crazy stuff and dealt some serious damage to Marinette. They were both laughing like crazy by the end of the fight.

"YEEEEEEESSSSSS!"

"OH COME ONNNNNN"

Laughter and groans spilled from both sides of the call. Marinette was clutching her stomach and Adrien's sighs got less depressed and more teasing.

"Cheer up, Adrien, I'm just more experienced than you are."

"Yeah, more experienced at mashing buttons." Adrien replied sarcastically.

"Jeez, that really makes me feel better."

"I know right? I'm so helpful!" Marinette rolled her eyes at his comment.

"Wanna play again?" she asked.

"Yeah, sure but…you should probably check the group chat. Group _Chat._ "

"Haha…"

"Je suis French."

"Ha." Shaking her head in exasperation, she clicked the group chat and scrolled up, anticipating some kind of massacre to have happened.

Volpina: ohmagod are the two lovebugs playing togetherrrrrrrr

Volpina: I ship it! ^^^^_^^^^^

Bubbler: Yasssss

The Gamer: Are you guys gonna watch it?

Volpina: Well, duh

Volpina: and here I was, thinking you were smart

The Gamer: -_-

Volpina: That was sarcasm

The Gamer: -_-

Bubbler: ok here we go

Volpina: wait

The Gamer: wait

Timebreaker: what

Plaggue: wtf

Volpina: am I reading this right

Bubbler: why

The Gamer: I THINK THEYRE IN A CALL GUISE

Volpina: I SHIP IT

Bubbler: ^^^^^^^^^^^

Plaggue: Wtf is she doing!?

The Gamer: She's literally spamming buttons witf

Timebreaker: Now he's doing it too

Timebreaker: wooooow

Volpina: okay then

Plaggue: What am I watching?!

Bubbler: guys calm down it's okay

Bubbler: great minds think alike

Bubbler: so

Bubbler: less great minds must think alike too

Timebreaker: legit enough

Plaggue: makes enough sense

Marinette snorted before sighing in affectionate annoyance.

"What the hell does he mean by 'less great minds'? Excuse me, I am very brilliant." Adrien argued.

"You were also homeschooled and spamming buttons."

"Fair enough. Do you wanna go again or do you wanna just talk for a while?"

Marinette paused, knowing fully well what she wanted, but instead tried to stay neutral, trying not to be too eager.

"Whatever you want. I 'm with okay with anything."

"Mmm…well…if it's okay with you…could you tell me about your school? I've never been to high school. What's it like?"

Marinette smiled. _YESSS. Well, NOOOOO but YESSSS._

"Well…it's pretty boring I guess. I have to wake up at 8:30 every morning to go to school, then I have bunch of different classes like mathmatiques, biology, physiques, and stuff like that." Marinette spent almost half an hour describing the classes and the buildings, complaining about homework and annoying classmates, etc. Adrien interrupted many times to ask questions, all of which Marinette answered enthusiastically.

"Adrien!" A voice called from the background.

"Coming!" Adrien yelled back. Marinette winced a bit at his shouting. "Sorry, I gotta go. I have a shoot I have to go to. Call you later?"

"Yeah. Call me later." He ended the call briskly and typed in a final goodbye before he signed off.

Chat Noir: Bye Mari-bug :)))))

Mari-bug. God the nicknames just got worse and worse. Last week, it was Buguette. Like baguette just with bug instead of bag.

Ladybug: Excuse me?!

Ladybug: -_-

He'd probably been saving that one up just so he could use it at a time when she couldn't yell at him for it. Sneaky cat.

* * *

The next time Adrien had logged on, it was already nearly 2 in the morning where Marinette lived. He immediately sent her a message after he saw that she was still playing.

Chat Noir: Isn't it like 2 in the morning for you!?

Chat Noir: What are you doing still up?

Ladybug: You said you'd call me later, didn't you?

_**Chat Noir is calling you** _

_**Accept** _ **l** _**Decline** _

"Go to bed!" was the first thing Marinette heard as soon as she clicked "Accept".

"I will…just gotta…finish playing this game…"

"No! Go to sleep, Mari. It's way too late."

"I'll be fineeee…how was the shoot?"

"It was great. I'm serious, Marinette. Go to bed. It's not good for you."

"Mmm, Adrieeen…."

"Yeah?"

"Can you tell me a bed time story…?"

"Will you go to bed after?"

"Mhmmmm."

"Okay. Are you on your computer or something?"

"Yeah…"

"Do you have Skype on your phone?"

"Mhmm…"

"Turn off your computer and go on Skype on your phone so I can call you there."

"Okayy"

Moments later, Marinette was in her bed, with the lights out, ear buds on, listening to Adrien talk.

"Now how about that bed-time story…?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"What story are you going to tell me, _minou_?"

"What? I don't speak French."

" It means Kitty."

"Oh. That's cute. Anyways, I'm going to tell you a story. The story of us. So, it's a hot summer day in Paris, and school is just about to end, and we're in the last week of classes. I'm sitting in front of you, at the very front of the class, and I'm upset because once classes end, I won't be able to see my friends often. I can hear you sigh, not out of disappointment, but out of relief. No more school means no more homework, no more waking up early, and no more stress."

"That sounds nice…"

"Yeah. And during the Lunch period, everyone's gathered around Nino, who goes to this school as well. He's going to organize a party. But not just any party. A pool party, to celebrate the end of the school year. I'm super excited about it, since I've never been to a pool party before, but you're more skeptical. You're wondering on whether you should go or not, because you're super clumsy and you don't want to make a mess of yourself at the party- At least that's what everyone thinks."

"Oh?"

"In reality, the reason you don't want to go is because you're self conscious about the scars you have. Scars from fighting evil Akumas as a masked superhero named Ladybug. You've got the power of luck and a magical yoyo to use when you're fighting."

"Just like from _Lady Luck…_ " Marinette murmured.

"Yeah. Just like from Lady Luck."

"What about you?"

"Me? I'm your super awesometacular partner, Chat Noir, and together, we are Paris' heroes. But here's the catch. No one knows who we are, not even ourselves. It's a secret."

"Do our powers come from a miraculous too?"

"Yup. I got my ring and instead of Karri as my Kwami, I got the horrible, gluttonous, weird, cheese-addicted Plagg as my unofficial un-fairy-godfather. Just my luck. And you've got this adorable little thing that's literally the personification of sunshine, named Tikki. She loves cookies and if I ever got to know her, I'd be so jealous I'd probably get akumatized myself. Though of course, I blame it on Plagg. Anyways, you're self-conscious about your scars and everything, but your best girlfriend Alya convinces you to go, and so you agree."

"That sounds like her already."

"Haha. So, we're at the party, and it's a blast. Everyone's having fun and Nino is having the time of his life, as he's the DJ at the party. Then suddenly there's a water fight going on, and there's screaming and laughing and everything else in-between. I throw a water balloon at you, and just my luck, I've hit you on the shoulder, where you have a bruise from crashing into the Eiffel tower. You cry out in pain and suddenly I'm not smiling anymore. I'm running over to you, asking if you're okay, offering to call and ambulance if you need one. You just glare at me and punch me in the shoulder, before you start apologizing, asking if I'm okay, offering to call an ambulance and stuff."

"Sounds just like me."

"I know you well, don't I, Mari?" Adrien teased.

"Mhmm."

"Then, our eyes meet and I can't stop staring at how blue your eyes are. Wait. They are blue, right?"

"Yup."

"Okay, so I can't stop staring at how blue your eyes are and it feels like I'm staring at my lady. You're staring back and you're just struck by how many different shades of green my eyes are and blush a bit. But the moment ends and I'm dragged away by the other guys and a bunch of giggling girls."

"I'd be jealous of the girls if you ever went to my school."

"Why would you be? If I were going to your school, you'd be the one I was dating."

Marinette's cheeks flooded with color and she squeezed her eyes a bit more tightly.

"You don't have to say that."

"It would be true though." She relaxed her eyes and just let herself breath for a moment. She'd dreamed of him saying stuff like that to her, but now that he did, it was so much more different than she had ever imagined. It hurt, somehow, but also, it flooded her chest with emotions she couldn't begin to describe.

"Continue." She whispered to him, after a brief pause.

"Well, I'm trying to talk to you for the rest of the day, but I can't seem to get a chance. It seems like you're avoiding me and I just want to talk to you, but I keep getting swept away by the crowd. When I do manage to find you, you're somewhere away from the crowds, sitting on the roof, just staring at the lights of Paris. I ask you if you're okay, but you absentmindedly reply and continue ignoring me. So I sit next to you and look at what you're looking at and it's beautiful. So we're sitting there, and neither of us has said anything to each other, just staring at the lights in Paris. Then, I'm staring at you, and it's even more beautiful than the lights of Paris. You turn to me and ask me why I'm staring at you. And I say, 'I don't know.' I don't have the guts to tell you that you're beautiful and the missed opportunity will be one of the greatest regrets I will ever have. I can't manage to sum up the courage to talk to you or ask for a number, and you're always mysterious trying to avoid me. So, I start to visit you, not as Adrien, but as Chat Noir."

"Wooow. How cool."

"I know you're being sarcastic, but I'm just going to pretend you meant that. Moving on, I start to visit you as Chat Noir, and the Marinette I see is a lot different from the Marinette I see as Adrien. You're sassy and witty. You're brilliant and sarcastic and pretend to enjoy my company just so it doesn't make me feel bad. The more I talk to you, the more I visit you and each time, the visits get longer and longer. You're not pretending to enjoy my company anymore. You genuinely do enjoy it, and I wished I could get closer to you as Adrien, but you shy away every time, and being the oblivious dork I am, I have no idea why. I wish I could tell you that I was Adrien, but I just don't know how. So, I just visit you again and again as Chat Noir, and I just can't bring myself to tell you who I am. Are you going to be disappointed? Are you going to yell at me or something? I'm getting paranoid about it and it's really starting to take its toll on me. Then one day, you tell me about the boy in the your class you're crushing on, but you run away every time he talks to you so you think that he probably hates you or something. You tell me about him, how you wish you could talk to him but just doesn't know how. Me, being the foolish cat I am, doesn't realize you're talking about me and everything gets more and more complicated."

"Complicated doesn't being to describe the situation you've put us in."

"No kidding. One day, when I finally get the guts to tell you who my civilian identity is, you refuse. And I'm confused, because I wonder why you don't want to know, but I insist, and finally you turn around and see me standing there, with my blond hair messy and my cheeks pink. I make a lame attempt to say hi and introduce myself but you're just staring at me, big blue eyes wide with shock."

"Who wouldn't be in shock? I'm lucky I didn't have a heart attack."

" You sputter out some nonsense and just continue to stare at me before you ask me the golden question; why? And then I'll say…"

"Because I don't know how to tell you without shying away, and I wish I could talk to you more but I just don't know how."

"Exactly. Then you reveal yourself as Ladybug and we're both staring at each other with our hair messy and our cheeks pink, sputtering out nonsense and making lame 'hello' jokes at each other. Then we talk, talk about everything, get to know everything about each other without having to feel awkward about it, and everything feels right. I learn about your crush on me (finally) and won't stop teasing you about it. You learn more about my boring life and we'll just lay there for a while, wondering what life would be like if we weren't superheroes."

"What happens after the big reveal?"

"After the big reveal, we'll defeat the evil butterfly man with the power of love and friendship. Then, we'll get married at the top of the Eiffel tower, move into my gigantic estate, have 20 kids, 50 grandkids, 20 cats, eat croissants every day and live happily ever after."

"That's a shitty ending."

"So dream up a better one then, Miraculous Ladybug."

Marinette closed her eyes and smiled. "Wish you were here with me." Well he sorta was. Marinette stared at the Adrien poster on her roof, a foot away from her face. It felt like he was actually talking to her. "And that we actually did have miraculouses. And that our story will actually come true."

"Who says it won't? Maybe it will. Besides, the story is kinda true."

"What parts are true?"

"The part about you being beautiful." Marinette snorts softly.

"You've never even seen me before."

"I don't need to. You're a wonderful person, and that's what makes you beautiful. Ha, I made a One Direction joke."

"Pff. You and your "jokes", _minou._ Makes me wanna slap myself sometimes."

"Yeah, I know. But that's okay. I get to hear you laugh." Aww. "Okay now, go to sleep. I'll talk to you in the morning."

"Yeah…in the morning…."

"Night."

"Bye bye…"

Marinette dreams that night, dreams of video games and croissants and babies and running across the streets of Paris as a superhero. They've known each other for a few weeks, and this is what he was doing to her. It was almost unreal, and Marinette loved every minute of it.

* * *

Across the world, Adrien lies on his couch and just closes his eyes for a bit. He wasn't lying about the part where he said the story was kinda true. It was. He hadn't lied about the whole being shy about telling her thing, for one. He was too shy to tell her what he really thought. So he kept it to himself, all the serenading and the virtual presents and the declarations he would make to her. Someday. But for now, he would just keep to himself and let the words he wanted to say float in his mind, waiting for the time they would be used. It was irrational, but wonderful at the same time.

_I love you, Marinette._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So dream up a better one then, Miraculous Ladybug~
> 
> That's probably my favourite line that I wrote xD


	3. First Dates and Promises Inbetween

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Is that what our first date would be like?" she teased.  
> To their first date. His first date. Her first date.

First Dates and Promises Inbetween

* * *

"And like-"

"Yeah, yeah girl, I got you. Your online boyfriend Adrien is the bomb, he's really hot, really nice, really funny, and this happened, and that happened, yadda yadda."

"But-"

"Yeah that text he sent you _is_ really cute, now can you stop shoving your phone in my face." Marinette pouted and Alya laughed at her expression. Marinette let her arm flop onto the lilac colored couch they were sitting on and let out a sigh.

"Well…I don't know if I can actually consider him my boyfriend. I mean we're just really good friends who talk really often."

"Girlfriend, you talk with him and about him for hours. Plus, you're totally in love with him, and looking at all the texts he's sent you, he's in love with you too. You guys practically know everything about each other. Too bad you can't virtually make out. Maybe you could invest in playing one of those online RPGs you can get married in," Alya suggested.

"That actually isn't be a bad idea…but it'd be really stupid. Ugh." Marinette groaned into a pillow. She lifted her head up and sighed. "I don't know. I don't know what to do, or what to think. Not anymore." Alya offered her a smile of encouragement.

"You're in love, sister. It's messing with your brain. Not that it's a bad thing. Are you happy?" Marinette thought about it for a moment, and let her thoughts drift to their midnight conversations and their friendly daytime banters.

"Yeah. I am." Marinette replied dreamily, smiling fondly.

* * *

"…And that's when Plagg decided that Lila looked better in blue and drenched the front of her shirt with blue paint. The look on her face was so terrifying, it would give a psychotic...clown...serial...killer-person-thingymajigy a heart attack." Marinette laughed at his description of his day. They were playing Agar io and Adrien was recapping his morning shoot he had earlier. Marinette quickly stuffed a pizza bagel in her mouth and chewed as she moved her pointer around the screen.

"What happened after?" She asked him, chewing vigorously.

"Let's just say Plagg was the one looking blue after that. Blue with bruises." Adrien replied. "What are you eating? Some fancy French delicacy? A nice frosted pastry? Genuine Italian spaghetti?"

"A cheesh bahgul." Marinette swallowed what she was chewing earlier quickly. "A cheese bagel, " she corrected.

"Oh."

"What were you expecting?" She teased him with a smile.

"All of the above." Marinette rolled her eyes and laughed lightly. Suddenly, a very, very large cell was approaching her and Marinette almost choked on the bagel she was trying to take a bite out of. "Oooooooh, non non non non non, this is bad."

"Ooooh, non non non non non, zees es bad!" Adrien said in a high-pitched voice, doing an overexaggerated French accent in an attempt to mock Marinette.

"I don't sound like that!" Marinette protested in response. "Do I?"

"Nah, your voice is a lot cuter." Marinette snorted, but she smiled and blushed slightly. She thought about him thinking about her for a while, and completely forgot the fact the large cell was still there and ended up dying. Marinette blinked at the death screen, still processing what happened.

"Um...Whoops. I died."

"O-Oh Wooooow. Good job," Adrien remarked sarcastically. Then a moment later, Marinette saw him get eaten by the same cell that ate her.

"O-Oh Wooooow. Good job," Marinette responded, equally sarcastic.

"For the record, I totally let myself die so we could play another game together."

"I believe that as much as I believe alien conspiracy theories. I don't."

"You never know! There could be such things as extraterrestrial beings. Just because you've never seen them doesn't mean they don't exist. Like with your fairies," Adrien argued.

"I never said I thought they existed though."

"You never said you didn't think they existed either," Adrien pointed out. Marinette had to keep herself from snorting again. At this rate, Adrien would probably think she was a teenage mutant designer pig or something. "Anyways, I told you about my day, so how was yours?"

"Ah, pretty boring. I actually somehow managed to make it to school on time today. It's a new record for me."

"Congratulations, Maribug. Finally managed to get to school on time. And only halfway through the school year!" Adrien mock cheered.

"I know right?! I feel so accompli-accompleesh-ACCOMPLISHED." Marinette stuttered, having trouble pronouncing the word.

"You're adorable when you're trying, you know?"

"According to you, when am I not?"

"Never. Anyways, anything else you'd like to share?" Marinette pondered for a moment.

"Oh, we visited the Louvre today."

"Really?" Adrien asked, excited. "I've actually never been to Paris, which is ironic since my dad is a fashion designer and Paris is the fashion capital of the world."

"You should come to Paris. Maybe you could come visit me, in my small family bakery."

"Yeah. One day, I'm going to visit you in Paris." Marinette closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair, computer screen still on the death screen of the game. She listened to the sound of his voice and imagined him sitting there next to her like she had did so many times before. We can go visit all the landmarks- you can take me around and be my tour guide."

"That sounds wonderful," she whispered. Then it struck her, and it shocked her at how much she actually wanted it. It was this aching feeling that reverberated through her chest and spread around her body. Like a wave of stress had been just lifted, and this longing had replaced it. It thrilled her, but also scared her, how much she wanted it.

"You could show me all the best spots in town, and all the best places to visit. The hidden gems at the heart of Paris, the most beautiful city in France. I can see it already."

"Oh? Tell me about it, _minou._ Tell me a story."

"We're in Paris, sitting at a café. It's a beautiful spring afternoon, and there you are, sitting across from me, and I can't help but think about how beautiful you are. You're wearing this dress you made all by yourself, and it's this beautiful pink colour that's sadly,the same shade as my cheeks. They get redder and redder as I'm at staring at you, because I'm not sure what I should say or what I should do. I make a lame attempt at a joke, which makes you roll your eyes and smile, and it makes me even happier than I already am. For a moment, I forget how nervous and stuttery I am, and I feel like some kind of a Prince in a lame fairy tale, and you're my princess."

"What kind of fairy tale?"

"The one with a happy ending. Not the really weird and creepy brothers Grimm ones, the ones that you would think are disney classics. I'm trying not to make a fool of myself and my horrible lack of social skills, so I sort of pretend this is a shoot and I'm just smiling creepily with this practiced smile. You just stare at me for a moment and we're just, you know, having a staring contest... on a date... that's suddenly interrupted by the waiter who is coming to serve us. _Thank god._ My eyes were hurting." Marinette giggles at little comment, and continues the story herself.

"And then you're sitting there awkwardly as I order for us because everything is in French and you have absolutely no idea what I'm saying, so you just sit there with a adorably confused smile on your face."

"But secretly, I'm trying not to sink into seat out of pure embarrassment." Marinette laughs in response, because she knows that it's probably what would actually happen on their first date. _Their first date._

"Is that what our first date would be like?" She teased. It would make it feel a lot more romantic if she wasn't staring at the black screen of the computer, but Marinette couldn't complain right now, her fantasies were coming true. Adrien didn't respond, and their was a brief pause on the line.

"Hey Marinette..."

"...Yeah?"

"When I finally get to visit you...we should go on a date. A real one. Just you and me. Oh god, this sounded a lot less stupid when I thought about it in my head." Marinette laughed at his remark (yet again, Adrien was a funny person, don't judge), smiling fondly. "But…one we do meet...will you go on a date with me?" Marinette was smiling so hard now, and somehow it was hard for her to breathe and she felt like crying, for no reason at all. She closed her eyes, at just let it sink in. He was asking her out, on a date. To their first date. His first date. Her first date.

"I would love to," she replied, meaning every word of what she said. She heard him puff out a sigh of relief.

"I thank every god that is watching over me, because I probably woulda died of embarrassment and heartbreak if you had said no."

"Who do you think I am, _chaton?_ I wouldn't say no, not to you." Marinette couldn't see him, but if she did, she knew, that he would be smiling, at her, at her words, at everything. And she knew that if he could see her, he'd see that she was smiling back, with nothing but love, true love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end of the blast for today XD Currently writing/editing a chinese new year special and chapter 4. Dw, bigger chapter coming up ^_^ Chapter 4 is probably going to be the longest one yet, and probably the cutest. Good stuff xD


	4. With You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It doesn't really matter, because by then, I'll be with you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I FINALLY GOT IT DONE! I procrastinated too hard, lol. This was slightly rushed, but I might go back and revise it once I get the chance to. Cheers!

* * *

With You

* * *

Controllers up and ready to go! Marinette was currently at Max's house, setting up her controller and getting ready for the Semi-Finals of the tournament. They were going to play on Max's gigantic 60" T.V and the games were to be live streamed on Twitch with commentary by Nino. Marinette was so excited she was practically shaking. So close to the prize. Another added bonus was that Max could help Marinette with her physics homework, which she forgot to do. She yawned at excused herself to go get some water to drink before her brain melted into a million pieces. It was late afternoon and getting hot outside, so Marinette took advantage of Max's high tech fridge that could dispense not only water, but perfectly square ice cubes. When she got back, she sat on the couch and texted Alya about the deets on the tournament, who was currently at her mom's restaurant, taste testing something.

Marinette: Wish you could be here to see me crush everybody :(

Alya: Dw, I'll be watching the stream, so I can watch you crush everybody on the T.V here in glorious 4k hd.

Marinette: don't get ahead of urself, lady wifi

Marinette: you better bring me a cake or something

Alya: Oh I will

Alya: but Ill probably eat it

Alya: oops

Marinette: -_-

Marinette vaugly heard Max talk to someone in English, presumably on Skype, so she didn't pay much attention to it and blasted loud music from her headphones, scrolling down Tumblr.

Ding!

Chat Noir: Heads u…

Marinette's heart lurched forward and she felt herself smile. Marinette quickly clicked on the notification so she could read his message as soon as possible.

Chat Noir: Heads up, Mari! Gotta look good for the cameras, right?

Marinette frowned. What cameras? She looked up, then looked to the side, before her eyes caught the screen and met a pair of iridescent green ones that were staring at her. She blinked a few times, the looked at the owner of those eyes. Really looked at him. Marinette had to refrain the urge to gasp or scream out of surprise or excitement or shock or whatever the hell it was she was feeling. _Oh my god he's even hotter than he is in those pictures. Why can't I screenshot this?_ She had to bite her lip to keep her jaw from falling towards the ground and making a fool of herself in front of him. He smiled, and a part of her melted as she smiled back, giving a little tentative wave before reaching her arm around her back to pinch herself. She really hoped this wasn't a dream. Marinette was so focused on Adrien she hadn't noticed the bunch of people standing next to him. Marinette quickly took out her ear buds and went to go sit next to Max. Nino, Plagg, and Lila stood next to Adrien and Marinette grinned up at the two familiar faces and the two other new ones. Well, technically, one other new one. Marinette was already halfway through the 20 colouring printouts of Adrien's face. They all grinned back at her and waved. Even the grumpy, always annoyed, lazy, gothic Plagg. Nino waved a little more enthusiastically and called out a hello.

"Hey Marinette! Hey Max!"

"Hi," they cheered back. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lila whispering something into Adrien's ear before he blushed madly and elbowed her, causing her to collasp in a fit of giggles. Max looked over at Marinette and she did the same before they both shrugged. _Weirdos._ Marinette would never say it aloud, but secretly, she was jealous. It was stupid, but she wished that she could be the one who was whispering something to Adrien right now. Sigh. Wouldn't that be something? Marinette purposefully kept her head down and went to go grab the glass of water she had poured herself earlier. In her pocket, she felt her phone buzz and went to go check the next message she had gotten.

Chat Noir: Is your hair actually blue?

Marinette looked up at the screen to glare at Adrien, who watched her reaction with an innocent expression, blinking harmlessly. I'd be a lot easier to hate him if he wasn't so damn attractive.

Send: Is your face naturally super hot?

Marinette sassily sent ba-OH SHIII-taki mushrooms oh my god what had she done he was going to freak and hate her and holy cra-

_Ding!_

Marinette could only watch in horror as Adrien's cheeks flushed even redder than it was before as he turn over to look at her with an eyebrow raised. Marinette squeaked before she ducked away from the camera, trying to flatten herself onto the floor in utter and complete humiliation.

_Ding!_

This time it was her phone. Marinette dared to look at the small screen that carried the reply, scared of what it might say.

Chat Noir: Well since you asked so nicely

Chat Noir: Yes, this is aux natural

Chat Noir: all parts 100% the same age guaranteed

Chat Noir: I swear plastic is not on the list of ingredients

Marinette almost cried a bit at his reply, glad he didn't push her for an explanation.

Ladybug: sorry…that's not what I meant to say

Chat Noir: It's fine dw bout it

An awkward moment passes between the two of them as the others chat with each other.

Chat Noir: Do you really think I'm super hot?

Ladybug: Don't press your luck.

Chat Noir: no but seriously

Chat Noir: I see that expression on your face

Chat Noir: point proven

Marinette sighed and looked up at him with a "are you serious?" expression only to find him gazing intently at her, curiosity sparking in those oh so beautiful green eyes. Unwilling to give in, she raises her chin up and stares him down, locking him in to a silent staring contest. Marinette could hear the giggles of Volpina and Plagg as they watched the two of them, but she couldn't afford to turn around to glare at them. Adrien narrows his eyes at her challenge, and glares back at her unrelentingly. It had only been 30 seconds but darn, it felt like an hour. Her eyes were starting to hurt. Whether it was from strain or from how good looking Adrien was, Marinette did not know, but what she did know was that she was too proud to lose. She was good at staring contests, but Adrien was better. He was like a statue, unflinching, with no expression on his face. Marinette knew that she had practically no chance of winning against him, so she did what Alya had taught her to do a few summers ago when Cholé first transferred into Marinette's class. Stare. That. Bitch. Down. Marinette found herself leaning forward and saw that Adrien was leaning backwards slightly, trying to keep a neutral expression. Marinette kept on glaring at full force before- _yes he blinked!_ Adrien sighed and pouted at her and Marinette grinned victoriously and finally blinked as well, before turning over to Plagg and Lila and silencing their giggles instantly. Plagg simply smirked while Lila mouthed _"I ship it"_ at her before giving her a wink and going over to join Nino for set up. Marinette sighed, shaking her head in exasperation and smiling slightly. She turned over to Adrien and smirked.

"I win," Marinette said smugly. Adrien rolled his eyes in answer and waved his hand as if to say, " _whatever"._ He cocked his head to the side and that child-like curiosity returned, making Marinette's smirk turn into a genuine smile. Adrien's eyes quickly dashed over to the rest of the gang and after pondering for a moment, whipped out his phone again, most likely hoping for a private conversation with her.

Chat Noir: Jeez, woman

Chat Noir: Where'd you learn to glare like that

Chat Noir: You could give my dad a run for his money

Ladybug: how much?

Chat Noir: -_-

Ladybug: lol its something a friend of mine taught me a while back

Ladybug: its part of our anti-bitch campaign

Ladybug: would you like to join?

Chat Noir: uhh

Chat Noir: im not sure how to respond to that

Ladybug: Weeee have cookiesss :DD

Chat Noir: chocolate chip?

Ladybug: every cookie you can ever imagine

Chat Noir: im in where do I start

"Eh-EM," Nino said awkwardly, clearing his throat. "We're going to be live in a few minutes. I know you guys like to stare romantically into each others eyes before staring off ominously into the distance like you're in some kind of a movie, but we gotta grind." Adrien glared at Nino and Lila smirked, wiggling her eyebrows at Adrien in a teasing manner. Adrien looked away, but you could see that he was blushing slightly, which made Marinette blush and Lila fan herself scandalously.

"Aaaand we're live in 3…2…" Nino counted. He quickly played the intro video he had made with Max a few days before and Marinette tapped her feet onto the ground in excitement. The video was a few minutes long and was a montage of all the best moments during the tournament. It also introduced the 4 remaining contestants in the battle and Marinette couldn't help but smile at the little details that Max and Nino had included. Small details, but they meant a lot. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Adrien was staring at her again, but when she met his eye to give him an encouraging grin, he looked away and avoided her gaze. The tips of his ears had turned pink and Marinette smiled to herself at the sight of that.

"Hey guys! It's The Bubbler here, presenting you the Semi-Final round of the **_Ultimate Mecha Strike III_** tournament extraordinaire! Joining me with the casting is the amazing Timebreaker!"

"Hey guys!" Alix's voice cheered out. She was from L.A. but more than happy to help cast the tournament with Nino.

"The games will be best of 5s, with the player who wins 3 times moving on to the Grand Finals, where they can win some incredible loot and a cash prize of 500 dollars! I'm pretty sure you know all the remaining contestants fairly well, but in case you're behind and don't, here's a recap of the current bracket and the Quarter-Final round!" Nino proclaimed.

"Last time, we had 8 players, but today, only 4 of them remain! ItsJustKim suffered a crushing defeat against Ladybug, who completely swept him away in 3 fights that lasted a combined time of 1 minute!" Alix continued.

"Volpina just managed to sneak through, closely defeating Timebreaker in 5 exciting rounds that had everyone on the edge of their seats. Max managed to (effortlessly) defeat Plaggue, and I managed to be defeated by Chat Noir."

"Defeated? Please dude, you were roflstomped by him," Alix remarked sarcastically.

"Nooooo one needed to be reminded that but thank you very much, Timebreaker….not."

"I can hear you, you know?"

"Moooooving on, today there will be two rounds and the last four competitors will be facing off against one another in best of fives. First up, will be Ladybug vs. Volpina and after a short break, will be continued by The Gamer vs. Chat Noir. Place your bets, people, cause we are going to go on a ride," Nino hurriedly said.

"Also be sure to tune in for tomorrow's grand finale and see which of the 4 remaining competitors will win the grand prize!"

* * *

The first best of five was going to be Marinette against Lila. Adrien was pretty sure that Marinette had been concealing her true abilities until the end and so, despite the fact that Lila was one of his best friends, his money was on Marinette. He watches the screen and watched them fight against each other, but he can't help but turn to the Skype video call and watches her as she plays. Her eyes are focused and her smile confident. Marinette was holding the controller in an arcade style while her lips pursed and her eyebrows scrunched up together with effort. It was adorable. He'd been caught staring at her a few times earlier, and even now, he couldn't help himself.

"Things are about to get _foxyyy,_ " he heard Lila purr. On the big screen he saw Marinette roll her eyes as she resisted the urge to face-palm like she always did when they talked and he made some stupid pun. It was nice to finally see it in person and he managed to catch her eye so he smirked at her, in an attempt to make her laugh. There were a lot of better alternatives than smirking at her, but to his relief, it worked and she laughed quietly, an earnest smile on her face. Noticing the headset she was wearing and the coy expression Lila gave him as she turned around to stick her tongue out at him, they were probably on a call. Adrien looked away pointedly and Lila snorted before saying something to Marinette that he couldn't quite catch. But he did catch the (once again) pink cheeks of hers as she sighed. He heard Lila cackle in the background but getting a grip of himself, turned to join Plagg and Nino in watching the game.

* * *

Sure enough, just like he had predicted, Marinette had won. It was pretty exciting and Lila had managed to snatch the second game away from her, leaving the game record as 3-1 in favor of Marinette. The last game was super close and Marinette had barely won against her. The two were obviously good friends by now and there were no hard feelings exchanged. Lila looked over to the screen and gave Marinette a (mostly) friendly wave and a grin, both of which Marinette returned without hesitation. Adrien quickly gave Marinette a thumbs up as her gaze turned over to him, and she giggled before giving him a wink. It took every inch of his will power not to sink in his seat. Nino and Alix finished up the casting and announced that they would be back for the next round in 15 minutes.

"I'm going to go get some water," Lila said while yawning.

"Yeah, I'm going to raid your kitchen to see if you have any Camembert," Plagg said lazily. Adrien saw Lila drag Nino away with her. He turned back to see that Max was leaving as well, presumably to go grab some food as well. He saw Marinette shrug her shoulders and turn back to the screen. Her eyes widened slightly. They were alone.

"Um…HI," Adrien began awkwardly. This wasn't how he imagined talking to her in his head, and in no way, was that going to be the first impression he was going to have on her.

"Uh… _h-hiiiiii…"_ Marinette squeaked back at him, smiling nervously and waving a little before half-giggled/half-cringed at her own voice. They both stared at each nervously as they both began to blush and giggle self consciously.

"So um.."

"Well eh.." They both started. Before they stopped and looked at each other, blinking rapidly and mouth moving even though no words came out of either.

"You first!" Marinette insisted to him.

"No, you first!" Adrien argues back at her. After a moment, they both began talking again before stopping to stare at the other. Adrien let out a nervous laugh and brushed his hair back as Marinette plastered what he presumed to be a confident smile on her face as she tapped her fingers together nervously.

"Well um...congratz on the win," Adrien said to her, smiling the model-like smile he put on at photo-shoots and public events. Marinette smiled back, a little more sure this time.

"Thanks," she said softly. Adrien looked at the background of the video, wondering what he should say next. Adrien may be a model, but he was socially awkward. The only girl friend he had ever had was Volpina, who he'd always seen as a sister. He'd rarely been in a casual conversation with a girl before, let alone a girl he _liked._ Adrien had no idea what he was supposed to say, and since his buddies had decided to desert him, he was on his own. His eyes quickly darted around the screen, trying to think of something to say.

"Is that your house?" He finally blurted out. _Really Adrien? Really?_ He had made up many scenarios where he had asked her questions but the one he just _had_ to say was no where near as romantic as the ones he had come up beforehand.

"U-uh...um...No! Nononono, it's not my house...it's Max-I mean, it's The Gamer's house! Heh," Marinette replied quickly. Obviously he wasn't the only one who was unprepared. "It's a really nice house though...like you...that's not what I meant! I mean-I mean the house has...lots of doors! Yeah, lot of doors!" She babbled. Normally Adrien would probably laugh at her response, but he couldn't really blame her. The moment he decided to speak all the words left his mouth and the ideas flew away, leaving him to embarrass himself completely.

"I...uh...cool! Um...well...this is my room!"

"IT IS?" Marinette yelped. "Um...it is?"

"Uh...yeah! Here, I'll show you around." Adrien grabbed the phone that was connected to the screen via bluetooth and gave her a tour of his room.

He introduced the gigantic library, the many, many screens, the skateboarding ramps, the basketball hoop, etc. Marinette gaped at the size and the amount of stuff in his room. He looked at the screen on the phone and saw that Marinette's mouth had dropped open.

" _Mon dieu_ , Adrien. Your room is bigger than my house!" He laughed slightly, then realized that she wasn't kidding when she said that.

"You're not serious...right?"

"When have I ever lied to you, _minou?_ " Ouch. In an attempt to change the subject as well as impress Marinette even further (mostly to impress Marinette further), he walked over to his video game collection and smiled when he heard her gasp.

"Is that..."

"Yup!" Actually, Adrien had no idea what she was talking about but still said it anyway to make it look like he knew what she was talking about.

"That cannot possibly be the limited edition Gen 72 of TKYL! Oh my god you are so lucky! WHERE DID YOU GET IT?" Marinette squealed. Adrien had no idea what she was talking about or where he had gotten 'it' so he just bluffed and pretended that he knew, praying that she wasn't testing him or something.

"You know...around..."

"That's so cool!" He heard her say cheerfully, and made a mental note to go and actually find out what she was talking about.

"You can have it if you want," Adrien burst out. Marinette made a little noise in her mouth and slammed her hands into the ground.

"R-REALLY?!"

"Yeah sure! I have wayyy to many games for my own good and you can have some if you want! I mean, they're just games and you can totally have it. I mean i'm rich and I could always get others and stuff."

"Are you sure?" Marinette peered at the camera in concern.

"Yeah, why not? Maybe I'll even personally deliver it to you once I go meet you. I have a private jet so I could tootally go and like, just... hang with you. Oil's suuuuuper cheap right now so I could just...jet over to you and then we could fly to Italy for dinner!" If Nino was here he'd probably give him the ' _wtf bro_ ' look right now. _Why u try so hard?_ Adrien moved the camera so you could see the view from the second floor, but if he looked over to the screen, he would see that Marinette wasn't paying attention and that you could literally see the hearts in her eyes.

" _Ooooookayyy~"_ Marinette said dreamily, completely forgetting uncertainty she had a moment ago. Just as Adrien went down and set the camera back where it had been before, Nino, Volpina, and Plagg returned, a glass of juice in Lila's hands, while Plagg was busy stuffing cheese down his throat. Coincidentally, Max also returned, and Nino went back over the the computer where the stream was managed, and went back to work.

* * *

Alya: YOU CRUSH THEM GIRL

Marinette: HAHAHAHAHA

Marinette: I AM GOD

Alya: Who do you think is going to win the next round?

Alya: No offense girl, but your boyfriend will get facerolled by Max

Marinette: I don't think so...

Alya: Oh? so u think he's going to win?

Marinette: Well...

Alya: Max is totally going to win

Alya: He's probably better than everyone else there

Alya: But u ofc

Marinette: Have some faith in Adrien

Alya: u wanna bet?

Alya: 2 l8 if he loses you owe me a lifetime supply of cookies

Alya: If he wins I will bring you expensive cake

Marinette: I don't have much of a choice do I?

Alya: nope

Marinette: :/

Alya: ;)

Marinette sighed at her phone, before looking up at the screen. The others had returned and Max had come back with a bowl of chips. On his way in Nino winked at him and out of the corner of her eye, she could've sworn he winked back. Their simultaneous disappearance and return was suspicious, and Marinette suspected they were conspiring together. For what reason, Marinette was not exactly sure, but they definitely had something going on. Nino and Alix resumed their casting and as the two boys prepped for their battle, Marinette gave Adrien a thumbs up like he had given her earlier and prayed that he would win. She really wanted that cake.

" _Bonne Chance,_ everyone!" Marinette cheered as she sat on the couch so she could watch their fight.

10 minutes later, Adrien and Max were tied and in their last fight. The intensity of it all was astounding and Marinette's breath caught in her throat, her mouth open in wonder. The two of them were almost evenly matched and both of them were so determined it surprised Marinette at how driven they were. She watched as Max made many calculations in his head as his eyes scanned the screen with a kind of familiarity that you would see in a mathematician. Adrien's eyes were narrowed and frozen on the screen, a bit of his tongue sticking out in an effort to beat Max. It was incredibly cute and Marinette made sure to tease him about it later.

_**Bam! Pow! Ka-boom!** _

_**Winner!** _

Marinette let out a gasp of delight and put her hand on her mouth as Adrien pumped his fists up into the air and shouted, "YESS!" Max let out a sigh, but to her surprise didn't get upset about losing. He just smiled at the screen and said,"Good game, Adrien!"

Adrien let out a little puff before responding."Yeah, you too. I didn't think I was going to make the last one." He smiled back at Max. "You're really good, Max. You should teach me sometime."

"Really?" Max asked, perking up.

"Yeah!" Adrien replied. "I suck at the bot you used. I might as well just spam my way into losing." Max grinned up at him, and grinned at Nino as well, who gave Max a thumbs up while he shouted into the mic. Marinette smiled up at Adrien, heart beating fast.

"Good job, Adrien! You just won me free cake!" The expression on his face was priceless and Marinette couldn't help but laugh.

"You wanted me to win just so you could have free cake?"

"Yeah," she nodded and while smiling as charmingly as she could. She looked over at Max who was watching them with a knowing smile and gave him s fist bump.

" _Je vais obtenir des cookies. En veux-tu?"_ Max asked her. Adrien stared at them, a clueless expression on his face.

_I am going to get some cookies. Do you want some?_

_"Bien sûr!"_ Marinette responded, nodding.

_Of course!_

"...what." Marinette smirked at Adrien, who sat there, watching their conversation.

"Uhh..." Nino began. "I'm going to go order some Pizza."

"Yeah, I'll go ask for some cake..."

"I'm going to see if you have any more cheese..."

Adrien frowned at their remarks and shook his head as they left out the door.

"I swear, they are planning something."

"They _definitely_ are. I swear I saw Nino wink at Max and Max winked back."

"Yeah," Adrien said, "I saw that too. I don't know what they're planning, but I don't like it."

"Not at all..." The awkward silence that had been there before returned. You could cut the tension in the air with a knife.

"So um...guess I'll be playing against you tomorrow, huh?" Marinette heard herself say, breaking the silence.

"Yeah. I look forward to it," Adrien responded, smiling at her slightly. Marinette wasn't surprised to feel herself smiling back at him. She was smiling a lot these days, and it wasn't something she had intended to do, but she couldn't help herself.

"You're going down, Kitty-cat. I'm going to wiiiiiin and you're going to be very very sad," Marinette teased.

"I probably am," he admitted. "Not that I mind. I've lost to you so many times at this point. It's not going to be much different than usual."

"Are you even going to try?" She asked him. He sighed.

"Not really."

"Well...I'll make a deal with you. If you win or get me at least below 20% health on the fifth game, I'll give you a prize. How does that sound?" Adrien raised a brow, unable to resist a challenge.

"What kind of a prize, princess?" Marinette shrugged.

"I don't know. You choose. As long as we play on my terms."

"Any prize?"

"Well...why not," Marinette allowed.

"How about a kiss then?" A pause. Marinette looked at him and he dared to meet her gaze. Her cheeks were slightly pink and Adrien tried hard not to look away. She smiled.

"You're on. Although I'm not sure how that would work."

"How about we try one of those online RPGs? We could get married." Marinette swallowed the urge to shriek and she laughed just so she didn't embarrass him.

"Whyyy not," she said sarcastically. "We could have lots of flowers, a 4-tier vanilla cake that my parents made for us and we could be wearing designs that your dad made for us. Wow, how nice."

"We could have all the napkins folded into the shape of the Sydney Opera house," he offered. She snorted, shaking her head at how unhelpful he was. "What? It looks pretty."

"You're crazy, Adrien."

"I know."

"But I am too. Only someone as crazy as me would be able to put up with you." He laughs and Marinette notices how much happier he looks when he laughs. He smiles and makes jokes, but he there's always something in his expression. A dark cloud. But seeing him laugh now, looking at how happy he is, it makes her happy too, and she wants nothing more than for him to be happy.

"You're really something, Mari."

"I know," she whispers. "And so are you." He smiles, but Marinette knows he doesn't really believe it.

"It's true," she sung out.

"Yeah, yeah."

"I mean, you're v-very good looking." _Crap. She did it again._ Marinette let out a groan of frustration and face-palmed, trying to cover her face with her hand and breathed in very slowly. "Sorry..."

"So you do think i'm good looking!" Adrien cooed.

"Don't get so full of yourself!"

"You know I'm never going to let you forget, this right?" Marinette sighed. _So you want to play that card, huh?_

"I know. But I'm also never going to let you forget about your tongue-sticking out habit whenever you play games. If you keep doing that, at some point you're going to turn into Miley Cyrus." They both shuddered at the thought, disgust evident on Adrien's face.

"Blech."

" _I know."_

They both smiled at each other for a moment. Marinette looked down at her feet before looking over at the kitchen where Max probably was.

"Uh...I should probably get going," she murmured. "I need to get home so I can finish some of my homework."

"Ah, homework, the bane of all existences. How much you struggle each day astounds me."

"Oh just you wait, Agreste. Once we see each other I will enslave you to the horror that is homework and make you _suffer."_

"You wouldn't do that. Would you?" Clearly, the prospect of homework terrified Adrien as well. Marinette smiled. _I taught him well._

"Of course I would."

"But you love me." A pause. Marinette swallowed hard and looked him in the eye.

"Yeah, I do. I love you, Adrien." His cheeks reddened and Marinette was trying hard not to pass out.

"I love you too, Marinette."

"But that doesn't mean that I won't enslave you to homework."

"It doesn't really matter, because by then, I'll be with you." Her heart burst into a million pieces and what was left of it throbbed in her chest.

"Yeah. You will."

"Then we could actually get married on top of the Eiffel tower with lots of flowers and a 4-tiered cake."

"And napkins folded into the shape of the Sydney Opera house."

"And napkins folded into the shape of the Sydney Opera house," he agreed. Marinette heard Max calling from the kitchen and she turned back towards the screen to say goodbye.

"Um, well…"Marinette stared down at her feet before looking back at Adrien and giving him a shy, but sweet smile. A smile meant just for him. "I have to go…so I'll talk to you later?"

"Yeah," Adrien replied breathlessly. "Later." They both awkwardly gave each other a wave and as Marinette was going to exit the room, she turned around to give Adrien one final look before leaving, a ridiculous smile on her face.

* * *

It was inevitable, and here they were. She's walking home with a hand on her chest, her normal stride becoming a skip until it turns into a run. It's desperate, wanting more, but falls flat when she realizes that there is nothing waiting for her at the other side right now. She could never afford plane tickets and she wouldn't ask him for something like that. It was so selfish of her. She couldn't. Even after all this time she was scared of rejection and awaiting the end that would surely come, but he has changed her so much that the fears and ghosts that had lied in her heart began to fade away and made her forget about how mundane she was. He made her feel special, in the kind of way you could never put into words, in the kind of way that she could never get from someone else. Her heart races as it calls to its twin soul, halfway across the world, who tells his friends to wait and goes to take a bathroom splashes water on him face and breaths in deeply in an attempt to calm his heart, pounding like a drum and storming like a race horse that never wants to stop. The adrenaline is coursing though his veins and he looks at himself in the mirror. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes wide with madness. Mad with love. He sinks onto the floor and wonders what has become of him. It was ridiculous, really. What had started out as an attempted friendship had changed him so much, and yet he in love with it. He is in love with the excitement and the freedom and the insanity. And he is in love with her. He's got it bad. But it was inevitable, and Adrien Agreste loved every minute of it.


	5. Special: Like A Family Should

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Chinese New Year everyone! :D I hope you're having a good day, wherever you live :)

Special: Like A Family Should

* * *

Marinette adjusted the iPad in front of her and leaned across the counter to stare at the boy on the screen. Her boyfriend, who was currently lounged on his chair, feet on the table, read over the sheet of paper he had printed out. It was a picture of a recipe that Marinette's mom had, written entirely in Chinese.

"So," she said. "How can this possible be _that_ hard? I mean, it's like a baked treat right? I was _born_ baking stuff. Well, not literally." Marinette rolled her eyes. "You get the point." Adrien shrugged.

"Well, you're going off my translation of the recipe, so you might want to have some extra ingredients as backup." Marinette laughed.

"I'm going to need some extra ingredients either way. I swear, I drop at least 2 eggs every time I'm making something that needs eggs." On the screen, Adrien grinned, knowing fully well the extent of his girlfriend's clumsiness. Max had once said that Marinette needed to be saved from tripping herself to death on a daily basis, and Nino had once said that Marinette spilled 3 glasses of water in one call, both of which Adrien believed. Taking out some baking tools, Marinette dusted off her hands (there was _always_ flour in the bakery) and looked at him, eyes determined.

"So, what's the first step?" she asked.

"Well…it says that you need to preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit."

"Wait. What? I don't speak American bad measurements or whatever."

"Oh yeah...okay...one sec. Err, that's about 176.6 repeating degrees Celsius?"

"Okay...I can work with that. Next?"

"Provide on middle frame?"

" _Excuse me_? What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Adrien threw his hands up into the air in mock innocence. Damn, Nino was right; when it came to baking, Marinette was _intense._

"Don't kill the messenger! Well…" Adrien looked at the sheet again. "Maybe it just means to put it on the middle rack or something. Marinette put her hand on her chin and thought about it for a second.

"Eh. I guess that'll do. What's next?"

"Uh…coat a 9 by 13 inch pan with butter. I think."

"You _think?_ I need to make this perfect, my parents are _bakers_ and it's Chinese New Year today and my mom loves this recipe and _ughhhhh…._ " Marinette sighed at let her face flop down onto the table. Across the world, Adrien sighed as well before putting the sheet of paper down and putting on a reassuring smile.

"Relax, Mari. It'll be fine. We are going to make the absolute _best_ rice cake for your mom and dad. You and me together, there's nothing we can't do."

"I don't really think you mean that, but I'm just going to pretend you do."

"I'm serious!"

"So am I," Marinette shot back. A moment passed between the two, before Marinette pushed herself up and smiled apologetically at him.

"Sorry, just stressed out. Shall we continue?" Adrien smiled back at her weakly before giving her a nod. He was stressed out too, after tiring night shoot, but Marinette needed his help and he wasn't going to complain if it meant that he was going to be able to spend time with her. Adrien picked up the piece of paper that he had set down earlier and began to slowly translate the writing again while Marinette began to coat a 9 by 13 inch pan with some butter. Adrien was squinting at the piece of paper, mouth twisting with effort. Marinette smiled at the sight. He was wearing the brown hoodie that made him look frustratingly cute and she was careful to not stare at him for too long, worried that he might catch her drooling at him or something.

"Okay," he began. "So you have to put 2 tablespoons of sweetened, shredded coconut and into the oven. You're supposed to bake it until it's golden brown, which takes about 5 minutes." Marinette considered that for a moment, before working quickly to get the coconut on the tray and ready to bake. Once the oven beeped, signaling that it was at the right temperature, Marinette quickly put the coconut on the middle rack and set the timer to 5 minutes. Then she turned back to Adrien, awaiting his next translation.

"Okay so you need 4 eggs." Adrien looked up at Marinette and grinned wickedly. "Do try not to break any, darlin'." Marinette rolled her eyes and shook her head in affectionate annoyance. She ran over to the pantry and grabbed 4 eggs before holding them in her hands, her face an expression of mock surprise, and showed the to Adrien in a taunting way.

"Woooooow. I'm soo amazing." She placed two of the eggs on a counter and turned around to put the other two on the bowl only to find that there was this _gigantic_ fly in front of her face. She shrieked in terror and accidently squashed the eggs in her hands, which had broken when Marinette squeezed her fists tightly as soon as she had spotted the fly. Marinette ran around, trying to swat the fly away, and in the process of doing so, splattered egg yolk all over the kitchen. On the screen, Adrien burst into hysterical laughter at the sight of Marinette's horrified face as she stared at the mess in her hands and laughed even harder when Marinette watched a piece of egg shell incased in a lump of egg white _slooooooowly_ drip down a cabinet door. Marinette took a deep breath in and turned to look at Adrien, who was trying to muffle his laughter with his hand. She glared at him, as if to say, _"it's all your fault"_ before working as quickly as possible to clean up the mess. Marinette washed her hands in the sink and pouted as she grabbed a towel to wipe the cabinets and counters that had been victim of her panic attack. Then, she grabbed a mop and mopped up the floor before going back into the pantry to grab two more eggs, careful not to break them this time. Marinette took a deep breath in, and then breathed back out.

"Do I just break them in the bowl or something?" She asked.

"Uh, yeah," Adrien responded, trying to keep himself composed. "You have to beat them into the bowl lightly to break the yolk." Marinette gave him a pointed stare before she closed her eyes and began to beat the eggs in frustration. " _Lightly,_ Princess. _There_ you go. _Egg_ -sactly like that." Marinette stopped what she was doing immediately, took another deep breath in and turned to Adrien, who was smiling as innocently as he possibly could.

"I wish you where here with me, because I _really_ want to sucker-punch your pretty little face in the jaw right now." Adrien simply grinned in return, blushing slightly. He still hadn't gotten used to compliments from his girlfriend, even though they were mostly accidental. Not that he minded.

"You sure like to _egg-_ saggerate to the _egg-_ streme, my lady."

"Oh my god, Adrien, _whyyy._ "

"You know they _crack_ you up."

" _Stooooooooooop…_ "

"Your _egg-_ spression of frustration is adorable, Mari-dear." Marinette face-palmed and glared at Adrien. _He's so cute when he's happy…HEY! SNAP OUT OF IT._

"Remind me," Marinette said sweetly. Then her pleasant expression melted into one of annoyance. "Why are we still friends?"

"We're not, remember? We're not juuuuuust friends." Marinette sighed before giving him an exasperated smile.

"We're good friends :D"

" _Mon dieu_. _Pourquoi est-ce que je suis en amour avec un idiot? Ah, je me reproche."_ Marinette says while gesturing in the air. She sighed and shook her head sadly.

_Oh my god. Why is it that I'm in love with an idiot? Ah, I blame myself._

"Hey!" Adrien protested. "I heard the word idiot. You're insulting me in a language I don't understand?"

"You understood the word idiot," Marinette remarked dryly. "So technically, you understood."

"Not context wise. For example, if I insulted you in Chinese but used the word 'dumb' in English, you could understand the word 'dumb', but not know what I am referring to when I say 'dumb'."

"Fair enough. I've never heard you speak Chinese before. Say something. Oh, but tell me the next part of the recipe first, I'm done beating the eggs."

"Oh yeah," Adrien said, leaning over and grabbing the sheet again, hair rustling as he moved. "I almost forgot. So pretty much, just add the rest of the ingredients in. 1 pound of sweet rice flour, 3 cups whole milk, 2-½ cups sugar, 3 tablespoons butter, 1 teaspoon coconut extract, and ¼ teaspoons fine salt."

"Oh, okay." Before she went to the pantry to get the rest of the ingredients, she quickly put a pair of oven mitts on and went to take out the toasted coconut. Marinette sniffed the air delicately, smiling at the pleasant scent. "Smells wonderful."

"Bet it does." A small sigh, just quiet enough that Marinette couldn't hear. She quickly went over to the pantry and grabbed a bag of sugar, a bag of sweet rice flour, some salt, and some coconut extract. Then after placing them onto the table, she went over to the fridge to grab some milk and butter. Marinette began to measure the ingredients out, all the while Adrien watched her with interest.

"So, say something in Chinese, Adrien."

"Uhhh..." Adrien though about what to say for a moment. Should he say something sweet? Or something that'll make her annoyed? A mischievous smile formed on his face as he considered his options, before finally settling on a classic.

"Wo ai ni."

"What? What does that mean?" Marinette asked him while measuring some sugar. Adrien smiled sweetly at her, tilting his head.

"Take a guess."

"Uhh…I'm clumsy? Is it another one of your terrible puns?"

"T-terrible? I think my puns are pretty funny!"

"Haha."

"A-are they not?"

"No."

"Oh." Adrien stared off to the side, depressed. "Well, no, take another guess."

"Why can't you just tell me?" Marinette whined. Adrien smirked.

"What would be the fun in that?" He teased. Marinette stuck her tongue out at him before marching to put the milk and butter back in the fridge.

"Cheeky cat."

"Like you wouldn't know." Marinette frowned.

"Does it say how much cups one pound of sweet rice flour is?" Adrien looked at the sheet again, eyes scanning the page.

"Oh, yeah it does. It's about 3 cups."

"Ok," she said, relieved. "That's good. I don't feel like getting out the scale. Now what does it mean, Adrien?"

"I'm not telling youuuu~" he sung. Marinette narrowed her eyes at him, and he smiled a Cheshire Cat smile in response.

"Okay then. Guess I'll have to resort to last-minute procedures." Marinette whipped out her phone and while mixing the ingredients together. "This is an app that a friend of mine made. Apparently it does decent translations or something." Marinette wasn't really sure what Adrien had said to her and just typed something that sort of was what he had said. She set the phone on her counter as she poured the mixture into the pan, eyebrow rising at the results.

" _The_ _air staff? Excusez-moi?_ Oh wait never-mind the setting is on Japanese." She used her free hand to grab a spatula and tapped the screen to change the setting to Chinese.

_**Results for:** _ _**Wouh aye ne** _ _**in:** _ _**Chinese** _

Wow cancer you

Wow short you

I cancer dirt

Wow love dirt

I yes you

Marinette's eyebrow rose once again, and she looked away from the screen and began to scrape the bowl clean. Adrien's eyebrow rose as well, wondering why she wasn't squealing or melting on the spot.

"What does it say?" He asked, curious.

"I think it's broken," she responded, putting the bowl in the sink and putting her oven mitts back on, placed the dish into the oven. "How long do I bake it for?"

"Err, 25 minutes, then rotate the dish, sprinkle coconut on top, and bake for 20 more minutes. What do you mean it's broken?" Marinette set the time and worked on cleaning up the room, putting ingredients back where she found them and letting the equipment she had used soak in the sink.

"Here, let me read some of the results for you. Wow cancer you! I cancer dirt. Wow, love dirt! Shall I go on?"

"That is not even remotely close to what I meant."

"Yeah, I can tell." She looked at him before leaning in closer to the screen, smirking. "Or is it?"

_Two can play the game._ Adrien leaned in as well, a coy expression on his face, gorgeous green eyes focused on Marinette's sky blue ones.

"You. Tell. Me. Is it close? Or is it not?" He purred.

"You are incredibly frustrating, Adrien Agreste."

"That I am. But you just can't resist it, can you?" He blew her a kiss and she rolled her eyes, cheeks turning red.

"I'm not falling for that one again."

"You may be able to avoid falling for that line again, but you could never avoid falling in love with _me_ again."

"What if I did manage to avoid falling in love with you again?" She asked.

"Would you want to?"

"No." Marinette's answer flew out of her mouth before she could even think about it. "I wouldn't give any of it up, not even in my wildest dreams." She smiled at him, and he smiled back, his hand propping up his chin. "My mama and papa always told me to treasure the things and the people we love. It's the people we surround ourselves with that can make us who we are, and even though there is so much hate in the world, there will always be love for those who are willing to look for it." Adrien blinked, touched by her answer. He didn't know he could love her any more than he did before, but Marinette had never ceased to amaze him. He was lucky, so damn lucky to have someone like her there for him.

"Your parents sound like wonderful people," he said softly. Adrien leaned back against his chair and played with the fabric of his designer jeans. "You must have lots of wonderful memories together. Lots of family dinners, events together, vacations…" He trailed off, smiling sadly.

"Adrien…"

"I can't remember the last time I've had family dinner. Even when mom was here, dad would always be swallowed up in his work, coming up with the latest designs and organizing the next ' _big thing_ ' in the fashion industry." He sighed, and stared up at the ceiling of his room. "I just wish we could spend some time together. Even if it's just 5 minutes, I'd still be happy, because he could be doing anything else with those 5 minutes, but he chose to spend some time with me." Marinette gazed at him, biting her lip. She wished she knew what to say, how to comfort him…but just couldn't think of anything to say at the moment. If she could she'd give him a hug…but then she'd have to hug the iPad and he'd probably see either her arms, or her boobs, both of which would not be very helpful. Adrien looked over at her, breathing out deeply.

"Do you think your parents would be into taking in a stray? Like, do you think they would adopt me?" He asked, trying to lighten up the mood.

"Probably," Marinette replied, nodding her head. "Yeah, they wouldn't mind a son. But that wouldn't really work. I mean, I'm not really into incest…Like if we had kids, they'd be our kids _and_ our nephews/nieces." Adrien shuddered at the thought and Marinette's face scrunched up in disgust. "We could get married though. Then you'd be their son-in-law. And it'd be a lot less creepy. You could move in with me. Actually, we would move out. Yeah that sounds a lot better." Adrien laughed, smiling at Marinette's hand gestures as she mapped out their future.

"Why would you want to move out?" He asked her.

"Well, I love my parents. I adore them. But sometimes, they can get _reeeallly_ intrud-y. If I told them you were going to move in with me once we get married, they wouldn't leave you alone. Ever. They'd probably stuff you with food and start introducing you to the long list of extended family I have. We wouldn't get a moment of privacy."

"Honestly, that sounds wonderful. You, me, your parents… My tutor says that every Chinese New Year, people go home so they can celebrate the Lunar New Year with their families, and there's a giant feast and everyone's happy…"

"They do. And one year, after we get married, you're going to come and spend Chinese New Year with us. Like a family should," Marinette insisted. "We'll stuff ourselves with food and watch dumb Chinese shows that my mom watches and we'll do all kinds of things people do during Chinese New Year. Together. We'll bake a Chinese New Year cake and then get sick because we ate too much or something. I don't know. But it _will_ happen. I'll make sure of it." Adrien didn't have any words to say. He was speechless, once again floored by Marinette's care for him and the determination in her words.

"Oh, and Adrien?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you too."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What Adrien said: Wo Ai Ni  
> What that means: I love you  
> Preview:  
> "You better not forget about our deal, My Lady. I want that kiss."
> 
> "If you manage to get me below 20% health, I promise you, the first thing I'll do when we finally meet is kiss you."


	6. Adrien's Journal: Hi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "...and I hope you know how much you mean to me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blech. I've been so busy this week and I'm having serious writers block! :( Any tips on how you get out of that hole that just wants you to suffer? :( Plus there wasn't a new episode this week T_T That did not help at all.

Adrien's Journal: Hi

* * *

Dear Marinette,

Your friend Alya texted Nino who texted me and said I should do this. He said that she said that it'd be really cute if I kept a journal thing and stuff so that one day I could give it to you and you could read it and stuff. You can obviously tell that this wasn't my idea because there is no way I could've thought of something as cheesy as that. Well, now that I think of it, I probably could. Though you'd probably smack me and tell me I'm being stupid or something. Today we played _**Super Smash Bros**_ together and talked about your school homework, which made me feel 237% more stupider than I already feel because I didn't know anything. What do they even teach at your school? Do you even call your school 'school'? They way you described it to me made it seem like some kind of medieval torture chamber with the fancy spikes and stuff. You know, the ones they show in movies and are like really unrealistic but at the same time super epic in a gross but cool way? No? :( You probably think I'm being super weird right now. Perks of being a homeschooled American teenager. Yay. Also, today you yelled at me for making some idiotic cat puns (again).

"I'm _feline_ generous today, so I'll let you pick the map~" I said.

"Do you need some phsyia...phyc...phys-ughhhhhhhhhh!" You said, really pissed at me (again). So, being the incredibly awesome and funny person I am, I said, "Having some trouble, my lady? Fear not! Your Prince in shining armor is here to save you from them im- _paw-_ see-bleh words that are _so_ difficult to pronounce!"

I think I regretted saying that as soon as the words left my mouth. I mean, I think I'm pretty funny but you're not that enthusiastic about me joking around. You could probably best Lila in a sassing competition, actually. Though I'm pretty sure by the end of it you'll be dead from embarrassment, but I wouldn't blame you for that. I mean, damn, that girl has no shame and the confidence of a drunk beauty queen. (which is a lot). (I think).

Today you also told me about how wonderful this movie you watched with Alya was. The one about the guy who sells his prized horse so he could marry that girl he liked. You also told me about how stupid the ending was. I had no idea about what you were talking about, and I don't even think I was focusing on anything you were saying (sorry please don't kill me, thanks), but I can still remember how wonderful it was to just hear your voice. I'm being a cheesy idiot, I know, but part of me hopes you feel the same. Whenever you're really passionate about something, you've got this fire and determination in your voice, and I can just imagine you waving your arms around wildly while ranting about it. Sometimes, you'll slip into French when you're talking. You'll catch yourself after a moment, but I don't really mind. I never want to interrupt you, and by the time you're finished talking, I'll just say whatever to get you to keep on talking. I think your voice sounds beautiful in French, but you don't seem very confident speaking in French when it's just us. I wish I knew how to tell you that it's okay, but I end up changing the subject or backing off. I guess that's the problem. I don't really think when I'm talking to you, and deep down, I feel as if I don't _want_ to think when I'm talking to you. You could probably say whatever you wanted and I'd be okay with it, because you were the one saying it. Well, not really, it's just a cliché so don't actually try it (I only put that line down because it sounded nice. :/ :D? No? D:). I can already imagine you snorting while you read this, and absentmindedly calling me a dork because I'm being ridiculous. I know I am, and I know you love it, because I'll say something stupid and you'll laugh. I remember when we were playing **_Blade and Soul_** together and you were laughing at me because I was stuck on a pole (glitches... yay), and I didn't mind being laughed at because it was you who was laughing and I just wanted to hear more. I think about us sometimes, at night when I'm lying on my bed trying to fall asleep. I think about what life would be like if we were superheroes or demigods or just plain living in the same neighborhood. Sometimes I'll spend hours thinking about you and wonder if you're thinking about me too. I don't have that many friends, and I rarely see my friends even when I have time because I'm not always allowed to invite them over. That's probably why I've grown so attached to these alternate realities that will never happen. I used to cry myself to sleep when my mom left, because I knew there was no one there to be there for me. No one I could talk to about my fears and my dreams and all that sort of stupid stuff no one here cares about. Then there was you. I didn't know I wanted to be able to know you better until I did, and even then I just didn't want to stop. Okay that sounds kinda creepy now that I'm reading it over again, but you get the point. I'm not exactly sure when I realized I loved you, but I do. I love you. This is supposed to be a journal about the stuff that's happening, not some kind of derpy man-diary, but I can't stop it. I can't stop loving you, and now I can't stop guy-crying because I'm being stupid about everything. I don't really mind it though, not anymore, and I hope you don't either. I really shouldn't be telling you about it like this, but sometimes I get too flustered to make even full sentences when I'm talking to you. Great. Now you're probably crying too (good job dude) and I'm (most definitely) regretting agreeing to this in the first place. I don't know what much else to say right now, and I can't come up with a good ending to this because I suck at writing stuff. I hope you don't mind if I end it like this, and I hope that you know how much you mean to me.

Uh,

Love, Adrien.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why did I do this


	7. Waiting In The Wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette's faced with a tough decision, and isn't sure of what to do. Go forward with her plan, or do what her heart tells her to do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gahhh. I finally finished it xD That was really hard to write. I wasn't sure how I wanted the chapter to go, but after working on another project, I went to bed and while trying to fall asleep, I came up with this great idea. There were lots of this that I changed after thinking about it, and I'm quite pleased with how this chapter turned out. Enjoy!

* * *

Waiting In The Wings

* * *

Breath in. Breath out. You got this, girl. Alya massages her shoulders and Marinette wiggles her fingers in preparation. She's back at Max's house for the grand finals of the tournament and she's more than ready for what comes at her. In front of her, on the screen, Adrien smirks, twirling his controller like a baton cockily.

_Plonk!_

"Ow…"

Oh well. At least he tries. Marinette sighs at Adrien's sheepish expression and behind her, Alya giggles like she's watching some teenage romance movie. Marinette gives her a little glare, silently warning her to behave but Alya just winks at Marinette in response, and Marinette sighs again, as if to say _"people these days…"._

"T-minus 8 minutes guys! Make your last preparations!" Nino calls out excitedly. "This is going to be epic!"

"Yeah, an epic montage of Adrien losing horribly to my girl over here," Alya says proudly, grinning. Her English certainly wasn't the best, but hey, sass was a universal language.

"Oh, hold up right there!" Adrien held up his hands. "I plan on either winning or going down after I've taken you with me twice. After all, I haven't forgotten the bet we made." He smirked at the camera and if Marinette didn't know him that well, she would've probably blushed madly and sunk onto the floor. Alya moved so she could look at Marinette, an eyebrow raised.

"What's this bet all about?" Lila asked, slowly slinking over to the screen, a sly expression on her face.

"Nothing important," Marinette said.

"Something very important," Adrien argued, smiling devilishly. Marinette puffed her cheeks in mock annoyance, though it was clear that she was joking. Alya's eyes darted back and forth between the two, leaning closer to Marinette. Alya began to stroke her (own) chin, nodding her head up and down until Marinette wacked her arm. Alya yelped and Marinette turned away smugly, looking back at the screen before sticking out her tongue at the people on the other side. Her gaze leveled with Adrien's and they grinned at each other as the countdown began, the sounds of the people around them still there, but not quite. _You and me. To the end._

_To the end._

* * *

"If you think about it, one day we'll be so old that our romantic walks will be the ones to the fridge. Our kids will probably so tired of us we'll die old and alone. Forever alone. But on the bright side, we'll be able to play bingo with the angry Italian grandmas and the weird British tea grandmas."

"Adrien..."

"I wonder what we would look like when we get old. Will my face get all wrinkly? I bet kissing as seniors is like getting a massage from a dry worm. That's why we should start now and enjoy it while we're young and not senile. I could help you practice," he offered, smiling as charmingly as he possibly could.

"Adrien!" Marinette's face burned as Alya squealed and Nino tried to muffle his giggles. Plagg had turned away from the conversation in disgust and Lila was laughing with her face flat on the couch.

"What?" Adrien asked innocently, even though his own face was starting to turn red. "I mean it!"

"We know you do, darling, and that's the problem," Lila said between her giggles. She stalked over to where Adrien was sitting and 'danced' around him, twirling like she was some kind of a ballerina. This made Adrien give her an annoyed look, which she grinned at before ruffling his hair proudly like she was his mother. "Ah, how little Adrien is growing up. Next thing you know you'll be doing a _lot_ more than just _kissing_."

" _Mon dieu,_ please, _stop_ ," Marinette begged, covering her eyes with her hands. Lila sighed and batted her lashes before plopping herself back on the couch she had sat on before and picked at her fingernails.

"If you say so...but seriously, you guys would make beautiful babies."

"No more."

"Okay, okay." Lila wiggled her eyebrows at the camera and grinned at Alya. A silent agreement was made between the two. They needed to get these two together somehow and get them married A.S.A.P. Marinette took a breath in and twirled her thumbs together. Now that she thought of it, she had never kissed anyone before. _Mon dieu,_ what if she was a bad kisser? What if she had constant onion breath and ended up grossing Adrien out or something? _WHAT IF SHE ACCIDENTALLY DOES SOMETHING WRONG AND ENDS UP KISSING HIM ON THE JAW LIKE THAT GUY DID TO ALICIA FROM 'THE CLIQUE'?! WHAT IF HE LEAVES HER BECAUSE SHE'S A TERRIBLE KISSER?_

Marinette could practically picture the conversation in her head right now.

"Ah, Marinette, you're such a bad kisser. Your horrific lips repel me such. I must leave you!"

"Adrien nooooooo!"

Or if this were the medieval times...

"How can za prinzess be zear like a fooleesh fool when zit zappozed to be ze gud kissa? We are zoune!"

"But Chattt! You are the only one for me!"

"I am ze only one to be a fooleesh fool enough to conzida loving zoo."

"NOOOOOOOOOONNNNN!"

Okay, now that was over exaggerating it a bit. But _hey,_ it could happen. Yeah sure, it was _super_ unlikely but still. _It's possible._ Snapping back into reality, Marinette accessed the situation. The current score was 2-1 in favor of Marinette. She was ahead, but if she wanted to win, she needed to win _now._ Well, not that she minded losing the next game, but the odds that were at stake were pretty high. Marinette hated breaking promises and she wasn't sure if it was worth taking the risk for. What she was sure of, was that there was a 101% chance that she would get a kiss from him eventually. Hopefully he would kiss her instead of her kissing him because when it came down to her having to make the move, Marinette was like a fish out of water; literally. She would be lucky if she wasn't flopping around and dying when they actually met.

"Time to roll, guys!" Nino's voice rang out. "We're live in 5...4...3...2...1...Annnd Welcome back to the **_Ultimate Mecha Strike III_** Tournament Grand Finals!" Nino reintroduced everything and blah blah, but Marinette wasn't paying much attention to him. There was a lot of pressure on her shoulders right now, and she was sure she was better than he was, but Adrien was playing recklessly today. They had played many time before, but his playing style today was a lot different than the one yesterday and the one he had before. This was more desperate and analytic than ever, and Marinette was taken aback at the execution of his attacks. They were on point and lethal, she admitted. He must _really_ want to win that bet. Marinette frowned. Should she let him win the bet and then take him down? Or should she just smush him like she usually did whenever they had scrims against each other?

* * *

Time flies when you're having fun, doesn't it? The fourth game that they played was probably the most fun even though they were to some degree, _actually trying._ That was probably why they were having fun, actually. Because they were actually trying.

"Stop being so _goooooood_ , Marinette."

"Excuse me? Stop being so _baaaaaad,_ Adrien!" Marinette laughed when she heard the offended sound Adrien made. Her fingers flew as they clicked the buttons repeatedly. No, she wasn't spamming, she was hitting Adrien's bot with combos, and _damn_ she was good. Marinette smirked cockily and tilted her head to the side. This was too easy. Her eyes scanned the screen and she considered her options. End him with the basic combo that was super easy to pull off, or try the new one she was working on and hadn't mastered yet? _Oh well, why not be flashy? He's going to lose anyways._ She had chosen. Quickly, Marinette moved towards the edge of the screen and began to rapidly charge up the Ultimate combo. She made her bot jump and was going in for the finishing move but she never got a chance to pull it off. By leaping down at the CN-13 while still charging up the combo, Marinette had carelessly made herself vulnerable to any attacks Adrien could throw out in that second. Any less experienced player would've lost right there to Marinette but Adrien wasn't less experienced than Marinette. He knew her well, and he was fast, so when the LB-03 leapt down at him to finish him off, he threw out his ultimate attack Cataclysm directly towards her, effectively defeating her before she could defeat him. Marinette's jaw dropped and she silently cursed herself for her bad decision. While Nino and Lila cheered, Alya stared at Marinette. Silent messages were exchanged between the two, Alya's expression questioning and Marinette's wary.

_What's going on? You're not playing like yourself today._

_I got too cocky. Guess I was trying too hard to impress._

_You sure that's the whole reason why?_

_I...I don't know._

Marinette looked away, her gaze turing towards the screen. Adrien was spinning himself around on his chair, a ridiculous smile on his face. He looked so happy it made her happy too. He was laughing while Volpina and Plagg exchanged friendly banter. She was so conflicted right now. Part of her wanted to just shut him down so she could claim the prize, but the other half felt so damn guilty as she watched him. Adrien looked happier than he was yesterday. He looked like he just got a standing ovation after the end of his first school play or something. _But he has no family to congratulate him...no parent waiting in the wings to tell him they're proud of him._ Marinette clenched the controller in her hands tighter, and looked down at the floor.

"Hey," she heard Adrien say. Marinette lifted her head back up to look at him, who was visibly concerned. She raising an eyebrow in an attempt to challenge him. "No playing round this time?" He asked her.

"No playing round this time," Marinette agreed, forcing a smile onto her face. "You're going _down,_ Agreste."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that, My Lady. You can still back out, you know."

"Like hell I will," Marinette shot back. Adrien grinned at her for what seemed like the hundredth time today.

"If you say so..." he sung back. "You underestimate me. I want that kiss. And that really, really, shiny limited edition staff/baton proplica. But mostly that kiss."

"You underestimate me. I really, really want that very, very nice special limited edition yo-yo proplica. And the cash prize. And the chocolates. And the watch."

"I know you do. I would surrender all the treasure in the world for you my lady. I just want that kiss." She heard a bunch of 'awws' come from her friends and Marinette did her best to plaster an annoyed expression on her face. Now was not the time to be fooling around but she really didn't want him to be upset because she was upset over her poor judgement. Marinette readjusted her posture while the game loaded back into bot selection. This time she was going to win. This time she was going to actually crush him and get that prize. The choices of bots was pretty standard; Adrien on CN-13 and Marinette on LB-03. As they went into the game Marinette found herself growing increasing worried about what she planned to do.

_I'm going to win. I always win against Adrien. It's never mattered before. Why should this time be any different? Why do I care so much?_

Marinette snuck a glance at Adrien as the match begun. She was already in the lead but when she looked at him, something changed. The determination that was on his face earlier was gone, and what was left was...acceptance. The match had barely begun and he had already given up. He'd accepted the fact that he was going to lose, that he wasn't going to get that kiss. _He was going to let her win._ Marinette looked back up at the screen and tried to get herself to just go all in and finish the fight but she couldn't. She couldn't bring herself to do that. Her fingers moved automatically, stalling the match. All she could think of right now was the image of a boy, all alone in his room for nearly everyday of his life. She had selfishly complained about her own parents to him before, and now it made her feel guilty. It's not like this was some kind of a life-and-death situation; they weren't fighting some kind of Akuma and they could lose their miraculous at any moment. But to Marinette, it mattered just as much, so when he moved his bot over and attacked her with his ultimate attack, Cataclysm, she only pretended to try to counter-attack. In the end, it was a simple decision, and Marinette let her conscience take over.

She let him win.

The shocked expression on his face and the excited cheering and squeals from the others filled her heart with joy. She turned back to look at Alya, not a single trace of regret on her face, only happiness, and Alya smiled back proudly. Alya somehow always understood Marinette. As Marinette stood up and stretched her arms and legs before glancing back at the screen, she knew that she had made the right decision. Adrien smirked at her, and Marinette looked away while holding her hands up. Hopefully he was convinced. Marinette didn't like lying to him, but it was worth it.

 _"My kiss,"_ he mouthed at her while Nino, Plagg and Lila celebrated around him, with Nino still casting the aftermath (he was yelling rubbish excitedly in English).

 _"Yeah, yeah, yeah..."_ she mouthed back, rolling her eyes. Marinette put her hands on her hips and looked away pointedly. Marinette hadn't won anything today, but just him being happy was enough of a reward for her.

* * *

That night Adrien and his friends celebrated but there was something nagging him, something in the back of his mind that kept urging him to pay attention to it. By the time he went to bed he still wasn't very sure of what it was, but when he woke up that morning, he knew exactly what it was. It was a sadness, a guilt, one that he had known far too well in the earlier years of his life. It was what made him go to his computer as soon as he was conscious and send determined messages to someone who lived half-way across the world. She hadn't said anything to him, no, but Adrien knew perfectly well what she had done for him. And all he wanted now was to see her smile like she did yesterday, hear the laughter that had imprinted itself into his mind. He really did.

* * *

_A few weeks later~_

* * *

"Okay, so where does your Aunt Clara live again?" Marinette held the umbrella a bit higher as she stared at the intersection in front of her. The sky was an ashen grey today, and rain poured heavily, pattering as it hit the ground. It was a gloomy day, but the city of Paris was more than alive, cars whizzing down the roads and pedestrians walking down the streets. Her fuzzy black gloves, long red coat and black scarf (all handmade by herself, duh) kept her warm in a not-so-warm day and despite the fact that the city was alive around her, Marinette was pretty much dead from exhaustion. She had so many tests this week, so much homework, that new design she was struggling to finish... She hadn't even gotten the chance to call Adrien this week or the week earlier due to how busy she was. Starting that new project was definitely a mistake and even though it was a personal thing, Marinette set many deadlines to keep herself on track. The little amount of time that she did manage to spare for Adrien so she could text him was the best part of her day. He could always make her smile, and at this point, that was more than enough. Marinette had been so tempted to call him, but tried her best to restrain herself knowing fully well that she;d never get anything done and with her grades already dropping, Marinette really needed to focus. But why she gave up precious time to do Alya a favor? She would never know.

"62 Claremonte Avenue" Alya chirped back happily.

"Remind me," Marinette began. "Why did I agree to this?"

"Girl, you sound like you're going to your death or something. _Trust me,_ you _have_ to do it." Marinette sighed.

"Why me? Why couldn't you go yourself? You know I'm busy."

"Because A, you're already nearly there, and B, because _you're my best friend, Mari._ "

" _Ugggghhh,_ okay, fine, but just this time. You owe me one. Promise?"

"Oh, I promise."

"Pff." Sighing again, Marinette stuffed her phone into her coat pocket and walked towards 62 Claremonte Avenue. She arrived a few minutes later in front of a small flower shop, filled with beautiful blooming flowers of all kinds. Marinette's eyes lit up at the beautiful variety of flowers and how they were arranged so beautifully and delicately. She walked in slowly, admiring how the colors complimented each other and how the petals fell forward gracefully. _If only I had my sketchbook with me._ She reached out to touch a Tiger's Lily, lowering her umbrella before gently caressing the edge of a petal.

"Hello! Are you Mademoiselle Marinette?" Marinette's hand instantly recoiled and she turned to face a woman, presumably Alya's Aunt Clara, as she walked towards her. Clara Césaire was a beautiful middle aged, averagely tall, chubby woman who had warm brown skin and lovely caramel colored eyes. Her smile was sweet and her eyes glittered. Ms. Césaire was positively one of the loveliest people Marinette had ever had the pleasure of meeting. Alya looked a lot like her, she noted. Their family has wonderful genes.

"Ah, yes, that's me. It's nice to meet you Ms. Césaire!" Marinette put on a smile and extended her hand out. They shook hands and Marinette looked around the interior of the shop. "You're shop is beautiful, Madame!"

"Ah, thank you! Clara will be fine, dear." They smiled at each other and Marinette's day brightened up considerably.

"Eh, I'm here to pick up a delivery?" Marinette kicked her foot back awkwardly. Luckily Alya's aunt understood what she was talking about and nodded before heading to the back to go grab something.

"One minute!"

Sure enough, Clara reemerged a minute later, holding a beautiful bouquet of fresh roses. Marinette's took a breath in and blinked at how beautiful they were as Clara handed the bouquet to Marinette. There were a dozen of them, with small white flowers mixed in-between to accent the roses. The roses themselves were a rich red, and some of the petals had raindrops on them, shining like crystals as they caught the light. The red color perfectly contrasted the deep green of the leaves, with the white flowers making the image even more beautiful. She definitely should've brought her sketchbook. Marinette's wide blue eyes met Clara's as she looked up at her.

"Who are they for?" Marinette found herself asking breathlessly. Clara looked confused for a moment, then pursed her lips in what might've been understanding.

"Ah, she didn't tell you..."

"Huh?"

"They're for you."

"They are?" Marinette was taken aback, holding the bouquet out in front of her, looking at it for a sec, then looking at Clara, then back to the roses, then back at Clara.

"Of course! Alya asked for them, saying something about it being from some American boyfriend. Oh yeah, apparentely he left a note on the tag Alya handed to me." Immediately Marinette's hands fumbled around in search for the tag, until her fingers grasped a square piece of card on the side of the bouquet. She flipped it open eagerly and her eyes quickly skimmed the words on the little card, smiling hopelessly.

_From your Chat_

_To my Princess_

_Just thought you needed to know_

_I love you_

Marinette was pretty sure she squealed at least 10 times before she refocused back into reality and tried to regain her composure. Clara laughed and just smiled knowingly. Wait...would she have to pay for this? Marinette blinked.

"Uh, oh yeah, how much are these?" Marinette asked Clara.

"No worries, dear. They're paid for." Clara responded, moving a nearby pile of flowers onto a different worktable.

"They are?" Marinette said for the second time that day.

"They are! Alya paid for them and muttered something about your rich boyfriend owing her a million dollars." Okay, that was _definitely_ something Alya would say.

"Alright then...uh, if you don't mind, I'm kind of in a hurry and..."

"Ah, no problem! Have a nice day!"

"Ah, thank you Ms. Cés- ah, Clara! Have a wonderful day!" Marinette quickly walked out of the shop, lifting her umbrella up and headed back towards home. She was going to call Alya as soon as she got home and give her a very strict interrogation. Marinette clutched the bouquet closer to her heart. Many questions, yes, but not just for Alya. For _him_ too.

* * *

You know that thing she said earlier? About giving Alya a strict interrogation as soon as she got home? Well, screw that. You know that thing about her calling Alya as soon as she got home? Well, screw that too. Marinette was standing in front of her desk, gaping at the package that was on it. It was addressed to _Marinette Dupain-Cheng_ at _12 Gotlib St. Paris, France._ From someone with a zip code of 10001 and an address of _6532 Astruc. Drive, New York, NY._ Oh my god. Marinette grabbed an X-Acto knife as soon as she could and began to stab the package in an attempt to get it open. After calming herself down she tried to _peacefully_ open the package. After a long 2 minutes of struggling she finally managed to get the package open, her fingers grasping the first thing she felt. It was a piece of paper. A very nice piece of paper, but a piece of paper. Then Marinette noticed the writing that was scrawled onto the paper. The handwriting on the paper was elegant but also messy. Like if the writer couldn't write down his thoughts fast enough, like if his ideas were slipping away from him. Gently, Marinette turned the piece of paper over and her heart throbbed in her chest. She wasn't ready for this. It was all going so fast. But still, she wanted more. So she began to read.

_Dear Marinette,_

_Hey. It's Adrien. I hope you liked the flowers I sent you. ^_^ I got Alya to order them for me so I could send them to you. I wish I could be there to give them to you in person, but I can't. I know they're really unoriginal and stuff but I think red would look wonderful on you and it's a really beautiful colo ~~u~~ r in general, so I got you roses. Also, because Google said it was  ~~probably~~ the_ _most romantic flower I could send you. I mean, I could've gone for the gardenias, but roses just seem more romantic. Well, uh, I'm not ~~too~~ sure how to write a letter and Google search isn't helping very much right now, so I'll just...write...words. :/ Great, now I've messed up on this sheet of paper. And this is a very expensive sheet of paper. And now I'm wasting room. Blah, anyways, I just wanted to let you know that it means a lot to me that you care about me. I know what you did- you don't have to say it out loud, but I know, and I just wanted to say, thank you. Thank you for trying to make me happy. You don't have to give up your goals to make me happy. It makes me happy when you're happy and I wish I could see you smile everyday. I had this whole speech planned for you that day, but when I heard you laugh at me doing something stupid, it was like every thought I ever had abandoned me. I know I was being dumb, but I just wanted to hear you laugh again. Alya told me that you had a lot of school work and stuff coming up and you were getting stressed over it. I hope that you're going to be okay and I know that you'll do great. I just hope you know it too. I also hope you know how much I love you. You're always there for me, so just know that no matter what, I'll always be there for you.  <3_

_Love, your cat in a skintight suit black suit ~~made from boyfriend material~~ :3,_

_Adrien_

Marinette covered her hand on her mouth. He really was an awkward idiot. Marinette found herself blinking back tears and had to sit herself down on the ground. She swallowed and leaned back so that she was fully lying on the ground and began to read the letter over and over again, running a finger on the page. Her finger traced the words he wrote, the mistakes he made, the little doodles he sketched, and just for a while, she let herself cry. It wasn't something that Marinette would usually cry over but right now, she didn't care. He knew, and he loved her even more for that. That stupidly lovable idiot. Wiping away her tears, Marinette went back to the package he had sent her and looked at the contents. Inside, there was the yo-yo proplica from the tournament, the chocolates, the 250 Euro cash prize...along with the watch and the...the game that Marinette had seen in Adrien's room the other day. The limited edition Gen 72 of TKYL. Oh my god. He remembered. She was trying hard not to break down again now. Goddammit, Adrien. Marinette sighed in content before jumping and dancing around her room, twirling happily. Earlier, Marinette might have said that this was one of her worser days but now, now this was one of the best days of her life. She just wished he was here to spend it with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Tokyo Night Scandal
> 
> The story of how Plagg got married to Nino, how Marinette became a patron of heaven, how Volpina ended up bleaching her hair and how Adrien became a Waifu.


	8. Tokyo Night Scandal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A night that they'll never forget...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait guys! I've been SUPER busy lately. I've got an online course I have to finish and other stuff that I have to do. Volunteering, projects, assignments...bleh. The good thing now is that it's spring break; I'll have more time to work on the story :D I'll still have to finish assignments so I won't have all day to write and stuff, but I'll try to get the chapters done A.S.A.P.

* * *

Tokyo Night Scandal

* * *

"Wait. The what?" Marinette asked.

"The annual Tokyo night scandal!"

"What the hell is that?"

Well, you see," Adrien began. "The Tokyo night scandal is an annual even that Plagg, Nino, Lila and I have been having since forever it's an annual fast/sleepover that we have. We stay up for 12 hours and aren't allowed to eat anything. It was originally a competitive thing but since no one backs out now it's more of a fun thing."

"Huh," Marinette remarked, brushing her hair back. "Sounds fun."

"It is! You should totally join us. Usually it's from 8 at night to 8 in the morning but we can do it from 7 to 7; which is about 12 in the morning to 12 in the afternoon in Paris. You said that your parents aren't going to be home this weekend, right? I'm going to ask my dad if I can go over to Plagg's house for the annual sleepover and see if he says yes, we can all participate." Adrien grinned at Marinette, green eyes lit with excitement. This was definitely going to be something.

* * *

Marinette spent the whole day napping and eating. Actually that sounded like a regular day off for her. The time she didn't spend napping or eating she spent texting Adrien, who was also napping and eating. Which, according to him, was usually what happened every year, though Adrien had to sneak food up from the kitchen so his dad wouldn't yell at him for eating too much.

"Tell me what he said again." She whispered, smiling softly.

"The forest is a dark place, Miss Ladybug. There are many monsters and creatures waiting for you there. They scream of nightmares and darkness." Adrien paused. "Are you sure you want to go there?"

"I don't know. Will it be cold there?"

"It will."

"Then will you go with me?"

"I would do anything for you, Princess." Marinette laughed softly at his words. If only everyday was like this one. Adrien was always busy with work nowadays. She didn't blame him. New York Fashion Week was coming around the corner, and with his dad being a famous fashion designer and all…

"Hey. You there? It's your turn." His voice was like a prayer. An escape in this limited world that she lived in.

"Yeah, I'm here," Marinette responded. She rested her head on her cat pillow and bunched her blanket up around her. "I know you would. And I would do anything for you."

* * *

**_Paris, France, 1:00 AM/ New York, New York, 8:00 PM_ **

Laughter was the only sound that she heard that night. It was 1 in the morning and Marinette wasn't even a bit tired. In fact, she was excited. She hadn't had this much fun in, well, forever.

"What are you doing?!" Lila's shrill voice echoed, vaguely reminding her of Chloé. Though Lila was 10 times nicer than Chloé was. "Don't just stand there, you idiot! ATTACK IT!" Marinette was already bent over laughing, trying to control herself, but it wasn't working. Adrien and Plagg just sat back and laughed at Nino's terrified expression while Lila beat him with a pillow. She shook his shoulders and Nino could do nothing but freeze. He looked like a Nino-Sicle. It was hilarious. Moving her fingers fast, Marinette quickly took a screenshot of the display. Oh, she was _never_ going to let Nino forget this. Adrien stood up and walked over to Lila, trying to stop her from turning his best friend into ground beef. Lila growled and turned around to try to hit him with the pillow, accidentally slipping on a blanket that lay on the ground, effectively falling onto him and knocking them both over. The spider that had been on the other side of the room jumped around, before landing on Adrien's nose, causing both Adrien and Lila to screech in terror. Damn. She didn't know Adrien's voice could go up that high. He could make Mariah Carey jealous.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Lila screeched. Adrien looked back at her, eyes wide.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" He screeched back. In a panic, Lila slapped his face, trying to get the spider off. Adrien yelped in pain as Lila slapped his face repeatedly. The spider flew off Adrien's face but in Lila's terror, she failed to notice and proceeded to attempt to smother Adrien's face with the pillow she was beating Nino with, ignoring Adrien's muffles of protest. Nino was still frozen in place and Plagg and Marinette were to busy laughing to do anything about it. Marinette took another screenshot. Oh she was _NEVER EVER_ going to let Adrien _or_ Lila forget about this. Ever.

* * *

**_New York, New York, 9:00 PM/ Paris, France, 2:00 AM_ **

"Oh my god, guys. Stooooooooooooooop…" Adrien slammed his head on the table. On the screen in front of him, Marinette was dying. Well, not literally of course. That would be devastating.

"Look! Look at this! I'm Adrien Agreestee, butterfly man!" Adrien groaned, trying to ignore the people flaunting around him. Give it to his "friends" to embarrass him in front of his girlfriend. Giggles came from all around the room.

"FABULOUS!" Breathe in…

"Let's go, _Kawaiidrien!"_ …breathe out. NEVER. LET. THOSE. THREE. AROUND. PHOTOSHOP. EVER. AGAIN.

PERIOD.

"T-that's e-e-en-nough, g-guys," Marinette attempted to say, while laughing. Adrien squeezed his eyes shut.

"This one! HAHAHAAHA, this one!" Laughter and more laughter. "He looks like a tractor…"

"R-remind me," Adrien said dryly, "why are we friends?"

"Because, we're all loners who have no life," Plagg said as cheerfully as he possibly could, hooking his arm around Adrien's neck. Adrien looked at him warily, trying hard not to pout. Lila said it made him look like an angry chicken. She even made him a picture. He obviously deleted it, but it still didn't stop her from teasing him. Then again, nothing stopped Lila from teasing him seamlessly. Nothing stopped her at all. Besides bugs, he reminded himself. For her birthday he was definitely going to give her a nice box with dead bugs inside. Was that too cruel? Adrien's thoughts wandered back to "Kawaiidrien"…well…he's was being too nice. Maybe he should stuff her birthday cake with cockroaches. Wouldn't that be something.

"Makeovers!"

Adrien's head instantly whipped up and her turned around to yell at her, but it was too late. Nino and Plagg had already bunched up his arms and legs, tying them together with duct take before he could even move an inch. They sat him down on the rotating chair. Goddammit. It was his turn. Adrien didn't even try to struggle this time. He'd learned that the hard way a few years back, when Lila elbowed his face and he ended up having a bruise that lasted for weeks. Marinette just stared at the sight, blinking in confusion. Noticing her lost look, Lila quickly filled her in while she smothered foundation onto his face.

"Annual makeovers~! We have them every year, where one poor victim is held against their will and sacrificed to the gods above. We're on a rotation and a very tight schedule! Gotta go fast!" Adrien rolled his eyes as Lila said the last part in a mocking cowboy accent.

"Yeah," he said sarcastically. "This is why we don't have any other friends."

"Uh…" Marinette's mouth tried to form coherent sentences. She was cute when she was like that. It made her a little more real and a little brighter in the world of pristine and perfection he lived in. Plagg was drawing a cat-eye with liquid eyeliner and Nino covered his face with blush, making him look like Kirby. He could see his reflection on the computer screen. He looked horrendous. But Marinette was laughing. Sure, she was laughing at his facial expressions, but she was still laughing. Adrien would willingly be subjected to this torture forever, as long as it made her laugh.

* * *

**_Paris, France, 3:00 AM/ New York, New York, 10:00 PM_ **

Marinette sighed. "I am the backbone of this very unhealthy relationship. I'm the husband, of course."

Adrien nearly choked on his water. "What do you mean?!"

"I'm the strong one who will support the people in this household! I am the only one who is providing the support in this loveless marriage."

Adrien moved back, offended. He placed a hand on his chest and looked at Marinette, betrayed. "So you're my husband and I'm your husband?"

"No, you're the wife."

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, wait no, sorry, the waifu."

"The what?"

"My waifu. Oh don't look at me like that! You're the one who watches anime." Adrien's mouth moved but no sound came out as he tried (and failed miserably) to deny Marinette's accusation.

"I would be a very good looking wife though. Right?"

"Yeah, you would, but you would be the worst wife ever. You have no practical skills."

"You're the lazy one though! How are you supposed to carry this marriage when you're being lazy?

"Me lazy? You're the one who sits at home 99% of the time!"

"I'm also taller than you!

"What does that have to do with anything? You should being doing housework, not arguing with the boss of this household. Now go take care of the children you man-woman!"

"Children?" He sputtered.

"How do you not know your own children? Disgrace! What will I tell Lila and Nino? That their father left us for a garbage can? Plus I don't know why we're still married. You cheated on me with Lila and you have a son named Plagg, who married our son Nino."

"W-what?" Adrien raised an eyebrow and leaned in closer to the screen. Marinette was smirking at him. "D-didn't you say Lila our daughter!? How does that work!?"

"Incest."

"Excuse me!?"

"Don't you dare look at me like that. You're the one who sinned!"

"Oh my god, why?"

Marinette sighed, covering her eyes with her hands. "And just when I thought I could retire. I feel like I should disown everyone here."

"I-I- How did we even get to this conversation?! We were literally just talking about T.V. like a minute ago!" Marinette sighed and dramatically turned away, resting a hand on her forehead.

"And I thought you were the one…I…I did everything for you! And all you gave me in return were-"

"STDs?" Plagg offered.

"What?!" Both Marinette and Adrien asked, moving backwards a little. Marinette's eyebrows raised slightly.

"Well, since you asked so nicely, if you want to know what STDs are-"

"I know what they are!" Marinette squeaked.

"Just go screw around with Adrien and you'll find out." Marinette recoiled in horror, face turning horribly red. Adrien whirled around in his chair to glare at him while Nino and Lila burst into hysterical laughter.

"Why!?"

"PLAGG!"

"Y-You have problems!"

"Yes I do. YOU CAN'T STOP ME THOUGH." Plagg's cackles were going to haunt Marinette's nightmares when she went to bed. If she was tweeting right now she would probably tweet something like #dead or #fml.

"Go watch a movie or something! Gooo awayyyy! How many ways do you plan on ruining my life today?!" While Adrien yelled at the laughing bunch Marinette slowly sank down in her chair until she was sitting under the table. What had she gotten herself into?

* * *

**_Paris, France, 3:30 AM/ New York, New York, 10:30 PM_ **

Click. Click. Click. The rapid clicking of Marinette's mouse echoed in her room. Damn. She _hated_ drawing with a mouse. It was probably the worst thing ever, next to sitting in class forcibly listening to Chloé yell at people. She sighed slightly, eyes slowly starting to droop as she colored in the picture she was currently drawing.

Click. Click. Click. Marinette barely managed to catch herself before she faceplanted onto her table.

"Tired already, Princess?" Adrien cocked his head at the camera and smirked. Marinette looked away stubbornly and huffed.

"You wish!" She stuck her tongue out at him. Adrien merely looked back at his screen and continued to grin wickedly. There was a comfortable silence between the two. The rest of the gang were still watching the movie, so the two decided to kill the time with some friendly competition.

_Briiiiiiiinnngggg!_

"Alright," Adrien exclaimed. "Time's up. Let's see what we got done."

Marinette was the first to share her screen. She had done a drawing of Adrien as Félix from _Lady Luck_ , complete with a catsuit and cat eyes. Marinette smiled proudly at her drawing. It wasn't her best, _oh hell no,_ but it was definitely cute.

"You like it?" She teased.

"Of course I do! It's amazing!" He leaned in, smirking handsomely. "You're amazing." _Don't blush, don't blush, don't blush, don't blush, shit his voice is sexy, NO, NO, STOP, don't blush omg, st-_

"Aww…are you blushing?" Ffffffffffffffuuu…

"Noooooooooo!" Marinette squealed as she tried to cover up her flaming cheeks. Oops. If anyone else was watching her they'd thing that she was having a spasm or some kind of deadly disease. She heard Adrien laugh at her actions. By now she was hiding under the table. Again. If Marinette were lucky, she would be able to prevent the bout of bad jokes and endless puns that were to come.

She was not.

"Don't be shy, peachy," Adrien crooned teasingly. "The cat's already out of the bag."

Oh my god. #fml

#dead

* * *

**_Paris, France, 4:00 AM/ New York, New York, 11:00 PM_ **

 

"I'm so hungry…and tired…and…sleepy…"

"What time is it over there in France?" Adrien asked. Marinette looked over at the clock before yawning.

"4 AM."

"Oh. Well, so far, so good. Only 8 more hours to go!"

"Easy for you to say," she grumbled back at him. "It's only, what? 10?"

"11," he corrected her. He smiled softly. "Besides, this is way past my bedtime." Marinette cocked her head to the side.

"When do you usually sleep?" She asked. 

* * *

 

**_Paris, France, 5:00 AM/ New York, New York, 12:00 PM_ **

"I'm not…doing that…"

"Oh come on," Plagg whined. "We all did it, Mari. Your turn." Marinette sighed and stared down at her phone. It was wrong…and she was, to be frank, terrified, but how bad could it  _possibly_ be?

"Fine," she growled. "I'll do it. In English. Just this one time."

"This one time," Lila confirmed, nodding her head. Adrien gave her a wink and an encouraging smile. Marinette looked back down at her phone and swallowed. She punched a number and set the phone to speaker. On the screen, the others leaned forward, eager to listen in. They all took turns prank calling some random person from Plagg's landline, now Marinette was going to do it on her phone.

_Brr….Brr…Br…_

"Allô? Allô, qui est a l'appareil? "

"It's a me…Mario…" Giggles exploded from the Skype call. Marinette turned to glare at them.

"Ah! Mario! You finally called me back!" Marinette jerked away from the phone. What. The. Fuck. Not every French person could speak English as well as this person did. Plus it was 5 AM. What kind of person was willingly awake at 5 AM on a Sunday?

"Uh…a….oui! I did!" There was a sweet giggle from the phone and Marinette held the phone even farther away from her. The others held in their giggles as they stared at her intently. Wow. This was really suckish for her…

"Oh, Mario! I've missed you so much! Where have you been, my love?" Lila was gasping for air now.

"I was ah…sailing…with…uh…" Marinette mouthed a desperate  _"helppppp!"_ to the others but they were pretty much #dead already. Adrien made a bunch of hand gestures to her in which Marinette responded with a bunch of weird mocking faces.

"With whoooo, honeybuns?" Marinette squeaked before quickly covering her mouth with her hand.

"With a…Donkey Kong?" Adrien stared at Marinette. She shrugged her shoulders and he sighed before covering his face with his hands.

"Donkey Kong? Who's Donkey Kong? Is there another woman I should know about?" Marinette whipped her gaze back to the screen.  _HELP ME! WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO?!_

 _"HANG UP!"_ Adrien mouthed at her while frantically pointing to the phone.

"Ah…non, non, my heart belongs only to you, but uh...Sonic is calling me, he says we have to…go fishing!" At that point Volpina could hold it in anymore. She laughed, clutching her stomach.

"Huh? WHO'S THAT IN THE BACKGROUND? ARE YOU HAVING AN AFFAIR? ARE YOU WITH A PROSTITUTE? YOU PROMISED THAT WE WOULD BE TOGETHER FOREVER! I HAVE WAITED SO LONG FOR YOU! DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY BUFFALO WINGS I HAVE HAD TO MAKE ALONE? IT PAINS ME SO MUCH TO MAKE THESE BUFFALO WINGS WITHOUT YOU! THIS IS WHY I NEVER SHOULD'VE MARRIED A FRENCH! I SHOULD'VE LISTENED TO MY MAMA AND STAYED IN AMERICA!" Sobs sounded from the phone and Marinette was frozen, wide-eyed as she stared at the phone.

"Hang up!" Adrien whispered furiously. "Mari! Do it now!" Moving as fast as she could Marinette quickly hung up and breathed in relief. Until her phone rang, calling from an unknown number.

_Oh shit._

"Block her number!" Adrien blurted out as Marinette was once again frozen in her seat. The others really weren't helping. They were laughing, but that wasn't helping. Marinette couldn't block the number. She tried to stop the calls but they came so quickly and they just wouldn't stop.

"What do I do?" She wailed. "I've got a creepy psycho who thinks I'm her buffalo wing making husband after me! This is all your guys' fault." Marinette pouted at her phone sadly while Adrien blinked, taken aback.

"No no, it's okay, Princess. We can fix this! Please don't be sad. Turn off your phone!" Sighing, Marinette turned off her phone. "Okay, well just wait until she calms down and just call your service provider to block the number. I think."

"You think?!" Adrien smiled at Marinette sadly.

"Yes."

"Ugggghhhhhhhhhhhhh..."

Once again, #fml.

* * *

**_New York, New York, 1:00 AM/ Paris, France, 6:00 AM_ **

"I...I'm still...awake..." 

Grumbles came from the screen in front of him. After the whole phone fiasco, they ended up watching an episode of Once Upon A Time. Not that he liked the show. He didn't like OOAT. Okay, maybe he did...just a little...

Who are we kidding Adrien was _addicted_ to that show. He didn't really know why either. The CGI was terrible and the storyline was kinda repetitive sometimes and the lines could come of really cheesy, but then again, so were Adrien's pick-up lines, according to Plagg. Terrible, repetitive, and cheesy. And highly addictive. They had yet to work on any girl, but at least he had a girlfriend now. He made a mental note to try them with Marinette. Hey, they _could_ work. Who knows? And besides, he usually included a few puns in there, and his puns were pretty funny.

Right?

Adrien blinked before turning his attention to the screen. "Hey, Mari..."

"...yeah...?"

"Do you think my puns are funny?"

"No."

"What? I think they're pretty funny!"

"They're terrible. Just like your face right now."

"What's wrong with my- Oh. Oh, yeah, that sounds about right."

"Huff." Marinette was holding her eyes open, trying to ignore the growling of her stomach and the screaming in her brain.

"Are you okay? Are you going to sleep anytime soon?"

"Haha. Sleep? What's that? I'm not going to sleep. I'm going to stay righttt here...and...sit..." Adrien frowned.

"If you want to sleep, you can," he said worriedly.

"Me? Back down? Not going to happen! Nope! Not me!" Nervous giggles.

"Why don't you do something productive?" He suggested. "Do you have homework you need to finish? Oh, wait, nevermind, French homework is literal hell, just kidding, forget I said that."

"You can help me with my homework," Plagg said, moving over to stand by where Adrien was sitting. "I've got to do a blog post on the Brazilian economy."

"After what you said to me and made me do? No way, Jose," Marinette replied, glaring at Plagg through her pried open eyes, which was a terrifying sight, if he did say so himself. Plagg shuddered beside him. Marinette had the prettiest bluebell eyes ever. You could get lost staring at them.

"Fine," Plagg sniffed. "Then I'll just have to do it with these bunch of lazy pants. Move over, Goldilocks. Time for the cool kids to do their nerdy ass homework." Plagg quite literally pushed Adrien off the chair and onto the floor, where he landed with a _plunk!_ and an _ow!_

"B-But..." Adrien tried to protest.

"My house, my rules. Bye, Felicia!" Plagg opened up Google Chrome, which covered the screen. Great. Now he couldn't talk to Marinette directly _or_ stare into her eyes.

"Ooooookay, Brazilian Economy..."

"Hey," Lila walked over with Nino, both holding their phones. They had been playing Geometry Dash at the other side of the room until now. "Whatcha doin'?"

"Blog post on the Brazilian Economy for Mrs. Swanfart," Plagg responded.

"Ugh. The one with the pointy boobs?"

"Yup. That's the one. Why is Google Chrome not working?" Plagg closed the window before opening a new one.

"Probably because it doesn't like you," Marinette called out.

"No one likes me but me, of course," Plagg replied.

"That's probably why you're never going to get a girlfriend." Lila sneered at him.

"Who needs a girlfriend when you have cheese? Okay, Google images, B-"

"Wait," Nino said suddenly, pointing at the screen. "What's a blue waffle?"

"I think I've heard about it somewhere on the intern-AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! DON'T CLICK ON IT! EWWWWWW!

"MY EYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES! THEY BUUUUUUUURNNNNN!"

"NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!"

"SWEET MOTHER OF CHEESE, TAKE IT AWAY!"

"THEN WHY THE FUCK DID YOU CLICK ON IT!? EW EW EW EW EW EW EW"

"I DON'T KNOW WHY DID I?!"

Screaming came from all around him and Adrien could do nothing but lie on the floor. 

"What's going on?" Marinette's alarmed voice asked. "What's happening?"

"Don't ask," Adrien moaned. "And whatever you do, don't search it up."

"I HAVE BEEN SCARRED FOR LIFE YOU IDIOTIC GOTH LONER!"

"Sounds like fun," Marinette sarcastically remarked. "Lots of fun."

* * *

**_Paris, France, 8:00 AM/ New York, New York, 3:00 AM_ **

****It was a miracle Marinette hadn't passed out yet. She was half expecting herself to pass out any moment now.

"Your turn," Adrien called out to her.

"Yeah...okay...what are we doing again?" Adrien sighed and leaned backwards.

"Listing all our favorite foods?" He replied weakly.

"Oh...yeah...chocolate soufflé...cordon bleu...soupe à l'oignon...blanquette de veau...moules marinières...ah...j'ai faim..."

"Are you sure that last one was a food item...?"

"I don't know...was it?"

"I...what's that smell?" Sniff. Sniff. Adrien, half conscious and half #dead, slowly walked over to where Plagg was sitting. Marinette couldn't see what Adrien was doing, though she could tell he was trying hard not to fall onto Plagg. "PLAGG! ARE YOU EATING CHEESE?" He yelled at him. Or well, he tried to. It came out as more of a sad groan then a shout.

"No..." Lila dragged herself up now and was slowing marching to where they were hair wooshin...oh...OH.

"What do you think you're doing? Are you eating?? Do you want me to slap you?"

"Li...your hair..." Adrien murmured in fear.

"Yeah, I'm dip dying most of it with Kool-aid. I told you earlier didn't I? No? Oh well. Anyways, we need to focus on an more important matter, are you seriously eating? That's a violation of our code!"

"Li! I'm serious...! Your hair! It's...all..."

"Fabulous? Gorgeous? Beautiful? Is that the word you're looking for?"

"Pink," Adrien finished.

"What?!? No that's no...PLAGGGGGG!!! WHAT DID YOU DO!?!?" Lila grabbed Plagg by the collar and slapped him. Hard. Even Marinette winced, and she was thousands of miles away.

"I may or may not have accidentally grabbed the high power bleach. Oops."

"LOOK AT MY HAIR!!! LOOK AT IT!!!! IT'S PINK! IT'S PINKER THAN ADRIEN'S CHEEKS WHEN HE'S SERENADING SQUEALING FRENCH SAILOR MOON WITH HIS TERRIBLE PUNS!!!!!!!"

"My puns are pretty funny!"

"No they're not," everybody replied in unison as Adrien visibly deflated. If Marinette wasn't so tired she'd protest or laugh. But she was positively #dead. And she was nothing like Sailor Moon! She wasn't brave, or a Princess...well...she was his princess, and she wasn't clumsy or always late to school or getting horrible marks or someone who spent majority of their day-to-day life with friends, family, or playing arcade games! Oh wait...huh. But she didn't but her hair into two buns though! But she did have two pigtails...But she didn't have a black cat named Luna! But she had un chat noir... qui s'appelle Adrien. Marinette sighed. Oh well. Seems legit. She was too tired to process any more thoughts so she just let Plagg be yelled at by Lila and let the sounds of his yelps and the sounds of her slaps/punches light up her ~~night~~ day. Oh yeah. It wasn't even nighttime anymore. It was 9 AM. The clock was ticking. 8 hours down, 4 more to go. 

* * *

 

_**New York, New York, 5:00 AM/ Paris, France, 10:00 AM** _

Plagg had officially been disqualified and had been subjected to extreme torture. A.K.A. Lila's beatings. He was also subjected to 4 dares, one from each participant, which he _had_ to do, whether he liked it or not. Marinette had dared him to film himself pretending to be a butterfly. Ha. Karma. Nino dared him to slowly burn his cheese, which they were going to do outside, later. Adrien dared Plagg to undergo an extreme makeover, so now Plagg looked like a gothic, emo Barbie doll that had just went to a tanning salon, burned herself, got a free makeover at Sephora, and ran into a swimming pool before falling into a sale rack at Claire's and said "I'll take it". So he pretty much looked worse than Adrien did at the moment. Lila dared him to stand still, which kinda confused everyone. Then she proceeded to sucker punch him. It was brutal, but it was awesome. It was also something Adrien grew up watching, so if he didn't want to get sucker punched, he did't say anything.

"Okay," Lila announced, "now that we are done with the punishment, we can prepare to take the photo!"

"What photo?" Marinette asked.

"Our yearly photo," Adrien explained. "We take one every year to signify another year of crazy weirdness or whatever. I don't actually know why, but we do."

"Yup," Nino agreed, popping the "p".

"The first thing we always do though, is we wake ourselves up by dunking our heads into a tub of ice cold water. We're going to go dunk our heads now. You should too! It'll help wake you up in time for the fun stuff."

"This year," Lila muttered, "This year I will make sure of it." Marinette stared at Lila blankly before shrugging her shoulders and heading down into the kitchen to grab a bowl. She probably decided that she's seen enough crazy stuff, Adrien thought. I don't blame her. We're a miraculously weird bunch...

* * *

"Wooh! _Mon dieu,_ that was cold." Marinette shook her head around and wiped her face in a towel while Adrien dried his hair with a towel. Lila was drying her hair with a hair dryer, sniffling as she softly caressed the pink mess. After about 10 minutes, the gang got together and began prepping for the picture. Luckily, Adrien managed to wash off all the make-up and sort of fix his hair. Sort of.

"How are we going to do it? I mean...I'm not actually there with you guys..." Marinette said tentatively.

"We'll just take the photo by the computer screen, so you'll still be with us. Sorta." Adrien looked at her and sat himself down on the chair, fingers reaching out and lightly grazed the screen. "Wish you were here with us. With me."

"I know," Marinette replied quietly, bunching up her legs and wrapping her arms around them. "I wish I was too."

"It's not always going to be like this. I'll visit you soon."

"Then what?"

"Then I'll steal you away, like a thief in the night. And no matter where we are, we'll never be alone. It'll be me and you. You and me."

"Still a better love story than Twilight!" Plagg called out from the bathroom. Adrien sighed and rubbed his hand on this face.

"And those horribly lovable idiots."

"And those horribly lovable idiots," Marinette agreed.

Scooching over on the chair, Adrien moved to type something to Marinette.

Chat Noir: Hey, can we talk later?

Chat Noir: In private I mean

Chat Noir: I want to talk to you

Ladybug: About what?

Chat Noir: About us

A swallow. A nervous look. A pause.

Ladybug: Meaning?

Chat Noir: Just something I wanted to let you know about

Another pause.

Ladybug: Ok

Chat Noir: does 12 PM work?

Chat Noir: that's 5 in Paris

_Ladybug is typing..._

_..._

_.'._

_..'_

_..._

Ladybug: Ok.

"Stop! Picture time."

"NiNO. Not this again."

"Yes this again." Lila sighed.

"Let's just take the goddammed picture alright? I swear, if we mess it up this time..."

"Huh?"

"Oh, it's just this curse that Lila has," Nino states casually, adjusting the cap on his head. "Every year, something always happens and ruins the picture for her. Last year, she sneezed right when the picture took and looked like a deranged kangaroo. And the year before that, she had a giant smear of lipstick on her teeth. We're a hardcore, no retakes kinda gang."

"More like sniveling cowards," Lila sniffed.

"Aaaand the abominable Italian bulldog strikes once again."

"Excuse me?"

" _Nevermind..."_ Nino coughed before calling everyone to where the computer screen was. Adrien moved the chair away so they could all stand around it. Adrien zoomed the screen up so the video call was bigger before going over to stand by the left of the screen. He casually slung an arm over the computer screen, like swinging his arm around Marinette's shoulders, as he would've done if she were here. Nino stood to the immediate right of the screen. Plagg went over to stand next to Nino and Lila stood next to Adrien. Plagg still looked like a hot mess, just this time, he looked like a hot mess that got high and fell into a pool.

"Is this position good guys?" A chorus of "yups" and "mhms" responded to Nino's question and he walked over to the camera to set the timer. "Okay, 10 second timer guys!" Nino quickly ran back to his original position and everyone smiled in anticipation. Lila's eyes darted around in the last few seconds, just waiting for something bad to happen. Her smile faded as she spotted something on the wall next to Plagg.

"SPIDER!" She screamed, pointing to the wall before instantly pulling her arm back and jumping a little. Plagg turned around slowly with a snort, only to be met with the sight of the gigantic spider from before, inches away from his face. He yelped and turned around as quickly as he could, trying to run away. He toppled onto Nino and accidentally ended up crashing his lips onto Nino's.

_Flash!_

* * *

**_Paris, France, 12:00 PM/ New York, New York, 7:00 AM_ **

The picture wasn't bad. It was horrendous. It was the work of the devil. Once again, Lila's streak of bad luck was continued. Nino and Plagg were scarred for a second time that day. The only person who looked good was Adrien. He was probably photogenic or something. Adrien had turned his head over to see what was going on and he looked fabulous while doing it. Marinette stared straight at the camera with a resting bitch-face. They were never going to forget this. Ever. It was going to haunt them to their graves. Might as well engrave it on their tombstones.

_Scarred for life_

or

_#fml #dead_

_or_

_Tokyo Night Scandal_

Why it was called that? Marinette had no idea. But when she asked, the 4 insisted that it was a secret. Something to do with brides and Japan, apparentely. Well, that was it for now. She was going to bed for the next five hours. Then...she was going to talk to Adrien. Marinette couldn't contain the flutter of nervousness inside her stomach. What was he going to talk to her about? Why couldn't he just ask her, instead of sending her a message? Not that it mattered right now. But it would. And she was terrified. But she still wanted to know.

*Insert Annual Picture Here*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not quite happy with how that turned out, honestly. Eh, I mean it's okay, but I just feel like it could've been better. I wanted it done so I could work on the stuff I've got planned, but it was a bit more rushed than I would've liked it. The next 2 chapters I've been planning are a lot more Adrinette centric than this one was. This was pretty much a dump for shits and giggles. Fun to write, but not satisfying enough for my shipper heart. xD
> 
> Next Time: Blue


	9. So

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So it's gonna be forever, or it's gonna go down in flames"  
> -Blank Space, Taylor Swift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I FINISHED IT ON FFN AND I WENT TO SAVE IT AND IT SAID I WASNT LOGGED IN FOR SOME DAMN REASON I WAS LIK WTF AND THEN I LOGGED IN AND THEN BAM
> 
> IT WASN'T SAVED
> 
> Inspired by Deadpool, line from Shadowhunters, I changed Volpina's name to Lila, I hate Lila, School starts today, I really need to sleep or I'll be late, new story arc called Blue, 4 Parts

* * *

 

Blue, Part 1: So

* * *

"So...I...was thinking," Adrien started cautiously. He'd changed into a cream-colored long-sleeved shirt with stripes and was running his hands through his hair. Adrien sneaked a glance at Marinette, who watched him intently. "I...was thinking..."

"About...?" Marinette asked hesitantly. She bunched up her legs and wrapped her arms around her knees. An awkward silence filled the room. There was so much tension in the air Marinette was terrified of what might come next.

'...stuff," Adrien finally croaked out. Another silence.

"Oooookay," Marinette giggled nervously. "Like...a box of stuff? A can of stuff? Stuffed animals?..." She trailed off, her attempt to ease the tension only making the situation more awkward.

"Stuffed turkey?" Adrien offered, making a lame attempt at a joke. The two of them laughed nervously and didn't dare to look at the other. Adrien forced a smile on to his face, but it ended up as more of a cringe. More silence.

A swallow. He wasn't breaking up with her, was he? That would be bizarre...and depressing...and TOTALLY POSSIBLE...

"I...I want...want...ed to know if you enjoyed hanging out with us at the Tokyo Night Scandal?" he blurted out. Marinette blinked. That's what he wanted to ask? Adrien looked away and nervously scratched his head.

"Yeah..." she said, somewhat unsure as she nodded slowly. "I did..."

* * *

_I want to visit you in Paris. I want to talk to you. I want to see you. I want to kiss you._

Adrien was never one for confessions. He had talked about going to visit her before, about what he would do when he did. Their first date, the strolls throughout Paris...why was he faltering now? Marinette loved him, he knew. But there was always something in the back of his mind that nagged at him. Maybe it was because he was a disappointment. Maybe it was because he could never stand up to his father and ask for what he really wanted. Adrien never talked to his father these days, and when his father did talk to him, it was always with that cold, ice-blue stare. Maybe, the reason that he was so terrible at confessions was because he was afraid.

Afraid of rejection. Afraid of being left behind.

Everything just seemed to stop when he looked into those blue eyes. It was all too real. His courage always left him in the dust when he desperately wanted it to back him up. He was Adrien Agreste, for god's sake. He was a famous model and confident in leading his teammates into battle against others in PVP mode. He should be confident. He has everything. Adrien stared at the screen to where Marinette was talking animatedly about the wild night they had. He wasn't listening to a word she was saying, nodding every now and then as he memorized the details of her face. Black-blue hair, bluebell eyes, little freckles spotting the bridge of her nose and that smile that he saw in his dreams.

He was Adrien Agreste. He had everything. But he had nothing that mattered. Except his friends. Except her.

The reality was right in front of him. They lived thousands of miles apart. He couldn't sneak out of the country. His dad would never allow him to go visit her. They'd talked about their dreams and wishes, and Marinette's included him. He didn't want to let her down. He could book a flight for her. He could book a hotel for her and take her on a tour of New York. Ship her some money? Buy a private jet? Adrien was being selfish. He blinked and refocused on the screen. Marinette was going on about how ridiculous the picture they took was. Which was true, it was already Adrien's desktop wallpaper. He couldn't help but smile at her wonky imitations of everyone, including him.

Maybe he was being selfish.

But all Adrien Agreste really wanted was to be happy.

* * *

"That did not happen," Alya said, eyes wide with shock.

"It totally did," Marinette countered smugly. "I haaave picturesss."

"No. Way. Lemme see," Alya replied, smirking with her hand held out expectantly. Smirking back, Marinette slyly reached into her bag and grabbed her phone, opening up the annual picture. Her smirk turned into a grin as she shoved her phone into Alya's face. Alya immediately grabbed the phone with her hands and scanned the screen, flipping her hair back as she did so. Alya had to muffle her giggles as she looked at the expressions that they had.

"You totally should've invited me," Alya said, swiping to the left and giggling as she saw the screenshot that Marinette took of roasted barbie Plagg. Unexpectedly, Marinette's phone buzzed. Marinette hadn't noticed though. She was too busy copying down Alya's notes that she had missed while daydreaming. Sparing a wicked glance at Marinette, Alya quickly exited the images app and entered her Skype app. Someone was texting their girlfriend. Alya wiggled her eyebrows, careful not to attract Marinette's attention.

Chat Noir: It's 5 am right now and I'm dying

Chat Noir: I hate morning shoots so much

Hmm...let's see what they've been saying to each othe-

"Hey!" Marinette hissed, snatching the phone out of Alya's hands. "I'd like my privacy still intact, thank you very much."

"Why?" Alya teased, leaning in. "Ohh...have you been doing the naughty-naug-"

"ALYAAAA!" Marinette whisper shouted at her furiously, smacking Alya's arm with her hand in embarrassment and horror. Her cheeks were bursting with red and Alya snickered quietly.

"Is there something you would like to share with the class, Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng?" The biology teacher turned around to glare at Marinette, who was whisper-shouting curses at Alya. Marinette instantly froze and her cheeks went even redder.

"No, Madame," Marinette squeaked, as stiff as a statue. The rest of the class giggled and Marinette was positively dying on the inside. Alya shook her head a little and patted Marinette's shoulder reassuringly. Marinette relaxed a little and puffed out a breath. The two shared a look and Marinette returned her focus to the board. When she was sure the teacher wasn't looking she opened up her messages and looked at the little cat emojis that he'd sent her. She smiled. Going home everyday was even better now. Adrien always knew how to make her feel better. Looking up at the board again, where the teacher was still drawing a diagram, Marinette released a deep breath. Then, she texted him back.

* * *

"Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."

"Oh, cheer up girl. This'll be over in a week, won't it?"

"Yeah, but...what am I supposed to do with my life for a _whole week_?" Marinette asked bitterly. "What did I used to do before afternoons with Adrien? It must've been incredibly boring, but then again, compared to the time we spend together, _everything_ is boring. His dad just _had_ to make sure that his schedule was completely filled up, complete with shoots every day didn't he?" Alya sighed at Marinette, who had flattened herself onto the chaise, shaking her head.

"You can't really blame him though. Isn't like, fashion week a month away?" Alya asked, hands on her hips.

"A month and a half," Marinette corrected glumly.

"Well...maybe his dad wanted more advertising and stuff so he'd get better people to walk for him or something," Alya suggested weakly. Marinette's only response was a groan and the banging of her head against her chaise. Alya sighed once again.

"Look," Alya began, propping Marinette upright so that she was looking at her. "It's only for a week, and after the week is over, you can go back to mooning over the American dream. But for now, let's have some fun girl time, you and me." Alya grinned at Marinette's slightly less glum face. "When was the last time you we gave each other makeovers? Or the last time we went to the movies?"

"Uhh...well...we've never gave each other makeovers before and..."

"You weren't supposed to answer that."

"Oh."

Alya face-palmed and shook her head with annoyed affection. "Let's go see that new movie that came out. Then we can go and buy some ice-cream or something. We haven't hanged out together for a while. Okay?" Marinette squeezed her eyes shut and when she opened them again, a new sense of purpose had taken over her. When Alya grinned at her, she grinned back, and they ran down the stairs as fast as they could, laughing as they crashed into each other on the way the door, and headed out to the movies.

* * *

Adrien was dying. Not literally, but he was dying. He had a smile frozen on to his face and mentally slapped himself as he posed for another picture.

"Yasss, yasss, like that! Work it! Beautiful!"

It took all the willpower he could muster up to smother the growing urge to throw the shovel next to him at the photographer's face. Adrien shifted his pose and tried to look as natural as possible while still looking like "a sweet Hawaiian pineapple". Where this came from, he had no idea, and why the set was a farm, well, he didn't want to ask.

"Ookay, take 5!" Adrien let out a sigh of relief and practically ran to where his bag was sitting. He wanted water badly, but water could wait. A spam of Ladybugs from his princess ended up crashing the app. Adrien snorted and grabbed a water bottle. A crew member passing by stuck a straw in before he could drink any and he gestured slightly in thanks. The gorilla would be here to pick him up soon. The shoot was going to end soon (thank god) and then he was off to Piano lessons. A stream of disappointment flowed into his head, but Adrien quickly pushed it aside. A make-up artist rushed over to do touch-ups frantically, dusting his face with more powder.

"Girlfriend?" She teased.

"Hu-w-what?" He turned to her and blinked twice, cheeks turning slightly pink. "Uh...y-yeah." The make-up artist smirked knowingly, dusting more powder onto his face, before turning his head around to inspect it. "How did you know?" He asked.

"You look like a fanboy."

"Excuse me?"

"You look like a fanboy who's just melting on the spot because they've met their idol or something. It's horrifically cute." The make-up artist said bluntly.

"Is-is that supposed to be a good thing or?"

"Yeah, kinda. She must be one lucky girl, eh?" Adrien smiled fondly at the phone, before catching the make-up artist's eye. He grinned a little, and the make-up artist tilted her head, raising an eyebrow.

"Ohh, she's not the lucky one. I am."

* * *

Then next time he texted her, it had been after-school three days since she'd last heard from him. Marinette distracted herself with new designs and hanging out with Alya. She played games with the group chat and hung out at Max's house. Marinette was doing it. She was living on without talking to him. It disappointed her every time she opened her phone and didn't see a reply, but she was going to be okay. The week was almost over too. Just three more days...and then she would be able to see and talk to him again.

Chat Noir: Just finished Chinese lessons

Chat Noir: Time to go for another fitting

Chat Noir: Yay

Marinette rolled her eyes, smiling affectionately.

Ladybug: huehuehue

Ladybug: lucky u :PPP

Chat Noir: -_-

Ladybug: ;)

Chat Noir: Not funny

Chat Noir: You'll know once ur busy doing whatever

Chat Noir: Living this life is not an easy job.

Ladybug: Then why don't you just ask your dad to stop booking so many jobs and putting you in so many lessons?

Chat Noir: I don't have much of a choice

Chat Noir: He's going to make me do them whether I want to or not

Chat Noir: Idk

Ladybug: Have you tried asking?

Chat Noir: It doesn't matter

Chat Noir: He doesn't listen

Chat Noir: He never does

Marinette frowned. She bit her lip, and puffing out a sigh, she furiously texted back.

Ladybug: So your just gonna...let him boss u round?

Chat Noir: I guess

Ladybug: That isn't fair!

Chat Noir: Life isn't fair

Chat Noir: Besides, he's my dad

Ladybug: that still doesn't give him the right to push you around like a pawn

Chat Noir: A pawn who's every needs are paid for and lives in a pretty cage

Marinette was getting slightly frustrated now.

Ladybug: Have you tried talking to him though?

Chat Noir: Lots of times before

Chat Noir: He's stopped listening since mom left

Chat Noir: I doubt he cares anymore

Chat Noir: It doesn't really matter

Chat Noir: It's okay, Marinette

Chat Noir: I'll be fine

Ladybug: No you won't

Ladybug: Stop telling yourself that

Ladybug: Stop pretending you're worth less than you actually are

Ladybug: Stop telling yourself it'll work out eventually

Ladybug: It won't

Chat Noir: How would you know?

Chat Noir: You don't know what it's like

Ladybug: Maybe I don't

Ladybug: But if you just had a heart to heart talk w/ him and tried...

Chat Noir: You don't get it

Chat Noir: Marinette

Chat Noir: I'm not like you

Chat Noir: I could never be

Chat Noir: I'm not fierce or brave

Chat Noir: I'm just me

What was that supposed to mean? That he was nice, funny, smart, and hot?

Chat Noir: wtver

Chat Noir: just forget I said anything

Ladybug: ...

Ladybug: Running away from ur problems great idea

Ladybug: Like that'll get you anywhere

He didn't text her back this time. Marinette wasn't sure what to do, and her good mood was officially killed. Stuffing her phone in her bag in annoyance, she marched down the steps of the school and headed towards home. Unfortunately for her, she was stopped by Alya, who had noticed her pissed-off expression.

"Hey, what's wrong? Chloé insult you again?" Alya asked with thinly veiled disgust.

"No..." Marinette replied. "Adrien won't stand up to his dad to ask for less jobs because he's tried already a long time ago and just gave up a while after his mom left. He doesn't care about himself and isn't 'like me'. He's 'just him' and doesn't think I understand. I don't get it." Marinette's voice was filled with sarcasm and exciting air quotes. She didn't get the reaction she as hoping from Alya though. Alya frowned and narrowed her eyes slightly.

"I'm getting the sense that the main reason behind this isn't Adrien's daddy issues or his low sense of self-worth, but the just the fact that you want to spend time with him."

"Excuse me?" Marinette asked, a little outraged.

"You care lots about him, I know, but he's right. You don't understand. You've lived happily with your family your whole life. You've always had support and love from your parents. His _mother_ left him Marinette. You can't expect him to be very motivated after that."

"Well...he could..."

"Girl, you're being selfish. You can't just expect him to change everything about himself and do what he's afraid of doing just so he can have some extra spare time, which he'll obviously spend with you." Alya shook her head in disapproval and Marinette looked down at her feet. Maybe Alya was right. Marinette was being just...stubborn about it.

"Oh well...It doesn't matter now..." she muttered. "He probably hates me."

"Stop running away from your problems. It won't get you anywhere," Alya shot back. "Think it through. Talk to him."

"I can't, remember?" Marinette responded dryly. "He's busy for the rest of the week." A familiar car rolled by, and out the window Max waved. Marinette waved back. They had planned on going to see the new Warcraft movie together that afternoon.

"Gotta go, laters Alya!" Alya returned it a little less enthusiastically but Marinette tried to ignore it. Marinette spent the rest of the afternoon getting lost in the world of games and lore. She pushed away all thoughts of Adrien or Alya that came into her mind and just tried to forget about all of it. It didn't surprise her when she started to hurt. What did she know about love? Adrien was her boyfriend who's family life she knew virtually nothing about. Where was she to judge? And now she was running away from all her problems, just like she'd told Adrien not to.

Maybe she was being selfish.

But all Marinette Dupain-Cheng really wanted was to be happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOU SEE THOSE DROPLETS FALLING OUT OF THE SKY?
> 
> THOSE ARE THE TEARS FROM THE MIRACULOURS WHO ARE STUFFED WITH ANGST
> 
> ANGST EVERYWHERE
> 
> Next Time: Utterly,  
> (Yes theres supposed to be a comma)


End file.
